Maharashtra govt to provide houses at ₹2.5 lakh to slum-dwellers

Slum dwellers can get homes in Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Pune by paying Rs 2.5 lakh, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Thursday, the move coming with civic polls due in several urban areas of the state.A government resolution on the new move was issued during the day."When I was chief minister, a law was enacted to protect slum dwellers who had settled in Mumbai before the year 2000. For those who had settled between 2000 and 2011, the state government used to charge a fee to allot them homes, but it was not fixed. Now, we have decided to charge a flat fee of Rs 2.5 lakh per house," Devendra Fadnavis told reporters.

Earlier, the cost of such homes was in the Rs 10-12 lakh range, which was not affordable to most in the low income group, said Satish Lokhande, chief executive officer of the Slum Rehabilitation Department of the Maharashtra government. "There are 2,205 houses ready at present that can be given to slum dwellers under this scheme. A few schemes of 700 to 800 houses are also in the pipeline and it will be completed in due course," Mr Lokhande said.Mumbai, MMR and Pune are the three regions where SRA is implemented. Wherever SRA is implemented, this scheme will come into effect and slum dwellers will get homes after paying Rs 2.5 lakh," he added.Meanwhile, Mr Fadnavis said the Centre's Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) can also be clubbed with this 'home for Rs 2.5 lakh' scheme to give people more relief.

Welcoming the decision, Nationalist Congress Party MLA Jitendra Awhad said the file for this scheme was moved when he was state housing minister (in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government)."As the (MVA) government fell, I could not take the plan to its logical end. At present there is a provision that people cannot sell such homes for seven years, which is harsh. I request Fadnavis to bring down this period to 2.5 years," Awhad said.