The Maharashtra Housing Development Corporation (Maha Housing) will execute a group housing project in 100 tehsils as a part of the State government’s Smart Village plan.
A total of 12.41 lakh people from economically weaker sections and lower income groups are expected to benefit from the project.
Building quality houses
Rajendra Mirgane, joint president, Maha Housing, said, “At present, the housing schemes being executed in the rural parts of Maharashtra are constructions targeting individual beneficiaries. Due to constraints in constructing a single house, the beneficiaries are left with substandard houses. This had led to problems in executing the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Rural). We have now decided to promote group housing so that more number of people will get quality houses.”
Maha Housing will be executing the Smart Village project in 10 villages based on the list of needy families. Maha Housing will also prepare plans for the construction and conduct on-site planning of amenities such as water supply, sewage flow, internal roads, lighting facilities and water harvesting systems.
Maha Housing will provide consultancy services to private developers interested in the scheme. Mr. Mirgane said, “A private developer who is unaware of the State machinery will find it difficult to secure permission, submit plans and execute the project according to the government guidelines. We will be doing all that work without investing our money. In return, 5% of the total project cost will be given to Maha Housing.”
Mr. Mirgane is also a member of a high power committee formed by the State government to set up guidelines for the self-redevelopment of co-operative housing societies in the city and suburbs.
Framing new guidelines
He said, “Yes, it has been observed that redevelopment of societies gets delayed due to various technical reasons and self-redevelopment could be one of the answers to it. A high power committee has been formed to design guidelines and we have had two meetings as of now. A detailed policy is likely to be out within two months.”
