If things go according to plan, the Shivshahi Punarvasan Prakalp Limited (SPPL) will also come out with a lottery system to allot affordable homes. The system will be similar to that of Mhada, which conducts a lottery of interested buyers in order to allot affordable homes in the state, every year.
The SPPL plans to create housing stock by targeting private developers whose ongoing Slum Rehabilitation (SRA) projects are stuck and those who are in desperate needs of funds to complete their projects in the city.
Private developers will be given loans at lower interest rates in which SPPL will act as an handholding agency and get funds for the private developers from the National Housing Bank (NHB) and Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited (Hudco) both Central government funded agencies.
Debashish Chakraborty, managing director of SPPL, said, “We will, for example, take money from the NHB and Hudco at the interest rate of 9 per cent and give loans to developers at approximately 10 or 11 per cent. In exchange for this, we expect those private developers to hand over some percentage of its commercially exploitable flats to the SPPL, which we will sell to the people at affordable rates implementing the lottery system. However, we are yet to decide the ratio of flats to be demanded from the private developers.”
A meeting was held between the NHB and officials from the SPPL on Friday and according to SPPL officials, NHB appeared positive about the idea.
“This system will also be helpful for those tenants whose projects are stuck and have been staying in transit camps for years. We will also ask the developer to design part of the flats of economical size in context of the size and area, which is a necessity in creating housing stock for affordable homes, and also because we cannot expect people to buy luxurious 3 and 4 BHK flats, which is a general practice of developers in the commercial segment,” said a SPPL official.
SPPL is a state government’s housing body, which was the idea of former housing minister Suresh Jain in 1998. However, the body is in talks only after last year the BJP-Shiv Sena led government had shown interest in reviving it.
“We will invite the request for proposals (RPF) for the appointment of project management consultants (PMC) in another month. The role of the consultants is important here as we are going to deal with private developers and we cannot act as an handholding agency without having proper plans for the project,” added the SPPL official.
However, experts claimed that no private developer would agree to the pre-condition of giving housing stock. Housing activist Chandrashekhar Prabhu said, “It is not the responsibility of any government body to give loans to private developers. It is the job of private financial institutions to give them loans and the government’s role should be only of administration. Also, there is no assurance that after granting loans to the private developers they will give the promised housing stock to the SPPL.”
