DDA housing plan: Subscription may not meet 2014 mark

27,000 forms of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) housing scheme were sold till Monday from bank counters across Delhi, according to a data by the land owning agency.

A senior official of DDA said that apart from buying the forms offline, lot of people are showing interest in buying online as well. More than 1,20,000 users have visited the section of DDA’s website where online registration is done, since the launch of scheme, he added.

The last day for registration is August 11.

The DDA launched its housing scheme 2017 on June 30, offering more than 12,000 flats that cost anything between ₹7.07 lakh and ₹1.26 crore.

DDA is yet to compile a figure on how many people have registered for the scheme and brought forms online.

The present trend suggests that the number might be lower this time as in 2014 housing scheme, in which more than 17 lakh forms were purchased and 10 lakh people had registered themselves for the scheme.

“This is also because only serious buyers are showing interest this time due to the forfeiture clause,” he said.

The clause states that if a prospective buyer surrenders his application before the draw date, no money will be deducted from his or her registration fee. If a buyer does so after the draw but before the issue of a demand letter, 25% of the registration fee will be forfeited.

If the flat is surrendered within 90 days of the issue of the demand letter, 50% of the fee would be cut. Beyond that time, the entire registration fee will be forfeited.

DDA’s housing commissioner JP Agarwal said: “One of the main reason behind several flats being rejected last year was unserious buyers or brokers applying for the scheme and later returning it because there was a sudden dip in real estate market. This time we want even if the number of people applying are low, only serious buyers should step in.”

He said that it is just the start of the scheme and people generally show more interest after two weeks.

Meanwhile, in order to make it easy for prospective buyers to visit DDA flats before applying, DDA will be uploading the contact person (engineer) names on the website.

“We had uploaded the detailed address but we were still getting inquiries of people for contact persons so that they can see the flats from inside. Therefore, the decision was taken,” said an official.