05 April,2013 07:14 AM IST | | Ranjeet Jadhav
The remaining 2,600 housing units, which were to be released in Virar are no longer available. One of the reasons for the cutback has been attributed to the lack of permission from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). A MHADA official said, "Earlier, we were going to include 2,600 homes from the Konkan Board in Virar for the 2013 MHADA lottery.
Since we are yet to receive MoEF clearance for constructing towers, we have decided to exclude the houses from this year's lottery." The decision was taken after a board meeting yesterday, attended by various HODs MHADA chief officer (Mumbai) Niranjankumar Sudhanshu said, "The advertisement announcing MHADA lottery for 1,002 houses will be out this month and the draw will be held on May 31."
MHADA officials were in two minds over making houses from Mumbai available for the lottery because many projects are in various stages of completion. "Several lottery winners from last year are yet to get possession of the houses. Some of them asked MHADA officials why they had included those houses in the lottery when they were incomplete. So officials have now decided to release only those units that are ready," an official said. Axis Bank has been appointed to oversee the lottery process this year. Sources claimed that testing of the lottery software would be conducted soon. A major relief with this year's lottery process is that it is completely online. For the first time, applicants would be able to submit their forms online.
"Aadhaar card has been made compulsory for this year's lottery. Though it won't be needed while filling the form, it will be mandatory for the winners to produce it while taking possession," a MHADA official said.u00a0Winners would be asked to prove their eligibility, and inform officials via email which income category - economically weaker section (EWS), lower income group (LIG), middle income group (MIG), higher income group (HIG) they belong to.
