EWS allottees of DDA’S 2014 housing scheme wait to get possession of flats
NEWDELHI: For the past four years, 700 allottees of the Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) 2014 housing scheme have been running from pillar to post to get possession of their flats. These people were allotted Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category flats at Shivaji Marg in west Delhi’s Moti Nagar.
“But to date, DDA is yet to issue the demand-cum-allotment letters to us. We don’t know when we will get our flats,” said one of the allottees, Dinesh, who works as a helper at a shop.
Dinesh, along with hundreds of others allottees, had staged a protest at the DDA headquarters on Monday to pressurise authorities to expedite the process.
“DDA officials are unable to give us a clear reason for the delay in giving possession. Whenever we come here, they turn us away and ask us to come after a month. We have submitted all our documents and got them verified twice from concerned authorities,” said Maniratan Tripathi, another allottee.
In the 2014 housing scheme, DDA had offered 25,034 flats on sale of which 700 were meant for the EWS category. These 700 EWS flats, which were constructed by a private developer, were to be purchased by the land-owning agency as per the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) rates from the developer. A senior DDA official aware of the development said that the DDA will pay close to ₹70 crore for these 700 flats.
Rajiv Gandhi, commissioner of housing, DDA, said “It is for the first time the land agency is going to buy flats from a developer following the 2013 notification by the ministry (Union housing and urban affairs ministry). A decision in this regard was taken in a meeting in December 2017.”
According to DDA officials, the process to allott flats to these people got delayed due to ‘technical reasons’. But the land-owning agency plans to expedite the process.
DDA officials said that they have not been able to initiate the process to buy these flats as it wanted the Delhi government to waive off the stamp duty on sale of these flats. DDA has to first purchase these flats from the private developer before selling it to the allottees of the 2014 housing scheme. DDA officials say that it has now been decided to pay the stamp duty to the government.
“We had requested the revenue department (of the Delhi government) for grant of exemption of stamp duty to be paid on the transaction between DDA and private developer. We have not heard anything from them so far. We will pay the stamp duty and the amount will be adjusted in the cost of the flats. We will start giving procession to people in the next two months,” said Gandhi.