CM tells SRA to release `500cr for affordable housing

To fund affordable housing projects in Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR), chief minister Devendra Fadnavis directed the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) to release Rs500 crore to the Shivshahi Punarvasan Prakalpa Limited.

In a meeting in Mantralaya on Wednesday, Fadnavis said that private land owners who had slums on their land would get three months to submit proposals on priority for slum rehab, failing which the land would be acquired. Accordingly, government and semi-government institutions with slums on their land will get six months to submit slum rehabilitation schemes failing which the SRA will appoint developers after calling bids.

The process of deciding on eligible slum dwellers will also be made easy and fast and the secret ballot voting will be used to appoint the developers for the project. Here, 70% of eligible residents at the meeting, but not less than 50% of them will vote for the developer to be appointed. Earlier, 70% slum dwellers could appoint their developers but this led to delays.

The chief minister informed that the survey of the slum cluster and the areas out of the SRA would be done through state of the art technologies. He said that the private bodies would also be roped in for speedy process of land survey and a detailed GIS map would be prepared which would include development plan limits. Area wise micro town planning would be done and rehabilitation schemes would be implemented with a speed. The SRA has been asked to prepare the list of beneficiary slum dwellers by GIS eabled bio-metric system so that area wise list would be available.

Minister for housing development Prakash Maheta, minister of state for housing Ravindra Waikar, Mumbai city mayor Snehal Ambekar, chief scretary Swadheen Kshatriya, municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehhta, principal secretary (Urban Development) D Nitin Karir, principal secretary to housng development department Srikant Singh, law and judiciary seccretary NM Jamadar and slum rahabilitation authority CEO Aseem Gupta were present for the meeting.