2 years later, 5 lakh homes only on paper

Tomorrow it will be exactly two years since Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry MCHI and the state government inked a Memorandum of Understanding MoU The intent was to develop five lakh affordable homes in Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region MMR However in a recent statement MCHI has claimed that nothing has been accomplished in the last 24 months According to the buildersrsquo body the proposal to create five lakh houses as part of the Homes for All initiative between the real estate industry and the Maharashtra government is gathering dust in Mantralaya Distant dream ldquoThe overall objective of the initiative was to address the yawning housing demandsupply gap and to provide affordable homes to the economically weaker sections lower income group and middle income grouprdquo Paras Gundecha president of MCHICREDAI said In this whole initiative the builders were going to develop the affordable homes on their projects and lands MCHI also claims that the availability of these five lakh houses would have eased the demandsupply mismatch and kept the market rates under some kind of check ldquoBut unfortunately today Mumbai has emerged as the costliest real estate market in the countryrdquo said Gundecha Gundecha claims the government usually doesnrsquot give clearances and the few ventures that get the nod are stopped midway If the same situation persists then nothing will happen even in the next five years they say Highrises high prices Builders say if the project had come to fruition the demandsupply mismatch in Mumbai which has emerged as the costliest real estate market in the country would have been checked to a great extent Representation pic Decision deficit According to MCHI in spite of repeated reminders to the authorities at various levels nothing has been accomplished though as per the MoU the state government was to extend all necessary cooperation The MoU envisaged government steps like including revamping legislation offering incentives to developers and authorising the nodal agency to provide for a singlewindow clearance to projects comprising affordable homesu00a0The pact was signed between the then chief minister Ashok Chavan and the then MCHI president Pravin Doshi Even other ministers and several bureaucrats were present in the meeting However with the new CM and the change in bureaucracy builders say things have changed dramatically The government claims that itrsquos unfair on the part of the builders to play this blame game ldquoWe had meetings with the builders there were engagements with the chief minister ndash both the past and the present one However some of their demands were practical and others werenrsquot Hence not everything could be accepted We did try to accommodate the builders and if the projects didnrsquot start then itrsquos not just our faultrdquo said Sachin Ahir state housing ministeru00a0 April 28 2010 Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry and the state government inked a Memorandum of Understanding MoU with the aim of developing five lakh affordable homes in Mumbai and theu00a0Mumbai Metropolitan Region MMRu00a0 Voices Sanjay Chaturvedi executive editor Accommodation Times It is the governmentrsquos duty to provide shelter at cheaper rates and not the buildersrsquo But then if builders are trying to do this then the government should help them in fulfilling this dream C Rathod a resident of Parel All this is just talk No one meant to do anything If they wanted they could have started the project but probably they didnrsquot see much profit in it The government and builder lobby are only interested in making moneyu00a0