The Hindu : New Delhi News : DDA plans new housing scheme

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Friday, Jul 29, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

DDA plans new housing scheme

By Our Staff Reporter

Would comprise two and three-bedroom flats many of which will be in posh colonies

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Development Authority is planning to come out with another mega housing scheme.

The Commissioner (Housing), Asma Manzar, said on Thursday that the new scheme, which would be launched around October to coincide with the festival season, would however come with a new name. For the scheme, she said, the completion of houses was awaited.

Stating that the scheme would primarily comprise two and three-bedroom houses -- many of which will be in posh colonies as in the case of the previous scheme - Ms. Manzar said as against the allotment of around 2,500 houses in the 2004 scheme, this time the number is expected to be higher and so the scheme is expected to draw a bigger response.

Incidentally, 2,506 flats had been allotted by DDA under its Festival Housing Scheme 2004 in January. The scheme had attracted 1,64,095 applications and the allotments were made through a computerised draw of lots held in the presence of four judges. The scheme had received a record response, which was only marginally less than than the NPRS 1979 scheme which had got around 1.71 lakh applications for a much larger category of houses.Reacting to complaints of large-scale rigging in the conduct of the computerised draw, Ms Manzar said they were not new and DDA had also replied to the Ministry about them.

With nine months having passed since the scheme was launched and seven since the allotments were made, she claimed the complaints were not genuine. "The draw was absolutely fair.''

Responding to the accusations levelled against DDA, the official said it was charged that a person "Parkash'' has been allotted three of the 10 flats reserved for the war-widow category while he was a man. Asserting that Parkash was indeed a woman, Ms Manzar said though she had been allotted three flats, as per the rules only one was given to her while the remaining two were surrendered. "There is no bar on the number of applications a person can make, but only one allotment is allowed per person.''

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