Mhada housing lottery fails to entice buyers this time

The fourth year of the housing lottery conducted by the Mumbai board of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) may turn out to be a disaster. With barely 10 days for the application process to end, only 39,380 applications were submitted  on Thursday.

A senior Mhada official told DNA, on condition of anonymity, that not selling hard copies of the forms over the counter resulted in the poor response. “Keeping only online applications have proved disastrous. Many poor and needy house hunters are not able to fill up the form,” said the official. He further added that high costs of the houses have also resulted in house hunters turning their backs towards the lottery procedure.

Mumbai board chairman Amarjit Manhas was still optimistic about getting a good response. “There is time for the procedure to end. The online facility has been given keeping in mind the convenience of house hunters. I am sure by the end of the stipulated time, we will generate good response,” Manhas told DNA.