MHADA lottery: Winners to celebrate with 'aamras-puri'

“This is the first time life has been kind to me,” says Dombivli resident Usha Naik, whose son Ramesh won the Mhada lottery on Tuesday.

Usha, 66, stays in a small rented room at present. She lost her husband 15 years ago, while her son lost both his legs in a train accident in 1994. Her daughter-in-law also lost a leg and hand because of polio. Now, however, her fortune has changed. She has got a 350-sq-ft house in Malwani.

“The house we live in is so small that it doesn’t even give us the privacy to change clothes. We cannot afford a house in a private building. Winning the lottery was a distant dream. But I am really happy today,” she says.

Ramesh was jubilant, too, and said he is grateful to Mhada for introducing an impartial scheme by which even the poor could get homes at the heart of the city. “We are celebrating this with aamras-puri,” he says.

Sunil Patil, another winner, lives in Pen but is an employee at Mhada’s Bandra office. “For the last two-and-a-half years, I spent five hours daily travelling. But now, I will soon shift from Pen to Mumbai,” he says.

Vikrant Jugade is also a Mhada employee. He hails from Nagpur and stays in Kurla with his friends. “In my category 47 people won houses; my number is 46. This shows I am a lucky,” he says.