Vacate your BDD chawls quick, avail lottery draw, says Mhada

The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) is luring the Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) Chawls’ tenants of NM Joshi Marg by asking them to shift to the transit homes by November end and avail the lottery draw offer.

A senior MHADA official said, “The tenants who will shift to the transit houses first will get an opportunity to participate in the lottery draw. In the draw, these tenants will know their flat numbers and on which floor their new houses will be located. Moreover, their new house agreement will be made free of cost.”

As per the data with MHADA, only 250 tenants of the BDD chawls in NM Joshi Marg have vacated their houses so far.

The lottery will be held for apartments starting from the top floor, which is expected to be conducted by December, informed the official. For instance, if by November, 400 tenants shift to the transit houses, then a lottery draw will be held for them and will get an opportunity to avail the top floor houses. Moreover, the authority will also sign a new house agreement with these tenants to win their trust. The official added, “Once the rehab house agreement is signed, the tenants will get a surety that they will get their houses back. As other housing projects are stuck from the last several years, it is one of the main reasons due to which tenants are not willing to shift.”

Those who shift later, will get houses on the lower floors. The idea is to vacate the rickety selected 10 BDD chawls to start the first phase of the redevelopment work. It will help to expedite the redevelopment project in NM Joshi Marg, where the authority wants to start the construction work first, said the official.

MHADA, the nodal agency, is undertaking the BDD Chawls’ redevelopment project located in all three places of Mumbai — Naigaon, NM Joshi and Worli. At NM Joshi, the authority as per the approved plans will construct seven towers comprising of 22-floors each in phase1, which will house 1,200 tenements. To construct the seven new towers, 10 chawls are required to be demolished.

The project work has been delayed as tenants are hesitating to shift from their houses, thus delaying the project deadline.

Though the caretaker Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis performed the bhoomi pujan (foundation stone laying ceremony) of the ambitious housing redevelopment project, even after two years no construction work has started till now.

The authority is still in the process of trying to convince tenants of BDD Chawls to support the proposed redevelopment plan and vacate their houses.