450 of HDIL’s homebuyers begged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help get flats

Homebuyers, who had booked apartments in HDIL projects and have been awaiting possession for years, don’t know what to do next. Just last month, a group of 450 homebuyers, who had booked apartments in Whispering Towers in Mulund, wrote to the Prime Minister seeking his intervention to get possession of their properties.

They said they have been homeless for nine years and the developer (HDIL) has ignored their requests for possession of homes that they have already paid for.

“We are in dire straits,” the letter from the homebuyers said, “and have exhausted all options and are left with no other choice but to approach you. The project was commissioned in 2010 and booking were accepted then. 

However, in the last nine years, only 18 out of 46 floors have been constructed and work on the second phase of the project has not even begun.” According to the letter, HDIL moved the possession date from December 2014 to August 2023. 

“We met the developer three and half weeks and were offered no solution,” said Shyam Chittari, a homebuyer.  “The PM is our last hope.” The letter says about 10,000 families have been affected due to delay in the completion of several HDIL projects. Chittari estimates that 5,000 of these are homebuyers and the remaining would be slum dwellers who were promised homes.

“These 450 homebuyers have paid close to Rs 350 crore to the developer,” the letter says, “In addition to this, the developer has this taken approximately Rs 175 crore from various banks. Approximately Rs 525 crore has been raised by the developer for this project and there is no accountability, which leads us to believe that there is a strong possibility that this money has been siphoned off.”

The letter reiterates homebuyers are under tremendous financial pressures. “People are finding it hard to pay instalments and even rents,” Chittari said. 

Nishant Mehta, who had booked a flat in HDIL’s Palghar project in 2010, said he had to urgently shift from his Vile Parle home and is now forced to stay as a paying guest to keep paying EMI for the HDIL home. “I have paid more than 90 per cent of the flat cost, as did 4,500 other homebuyers in this project,” he said. “The developer collected funds from us and diverted it to another project. Till now only 450 people must have got their homes, the rest are suffering.” Mehta approached the consumer court and the case is said to be in the final stages.