Mumbai to soon get 11 lakh new houses

Mumbai: Mumbai is soon to witness around eleven lakh new houses with seven lakh in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) alone, the Maharashtra government has declared. According to state Housing Minister, Prakash Mehta’s claim to the Legislative Assembly, 50 percent of the total number of these houses will get completed in the next five years. “The government could bring down the number of the cessed buildings in the city to 16,000 from 19,000 few years ago”, said Mehta. We have decided to complete the re-development of all the cessed buildings in next five years. FSI for such buildings have already been raised to 3 from 2.5 and we would not hesitate to increase it to 3.5, if the need be." [caption id=“attachment_886769” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] This statement was seemingly a reply to last evening’s debate on the allocation of budget to the housing department. Apparently, the minister wants to keep a strict eye on the completion of these projects and confidently claimed that no objection certificate will not be passed and the housing projects will be monitored well to avoid any delays. The ministry also plans on compiling a list of slum dwellers across the city and allot the slum-rehabilitation programme to the builders via e-tendering to ensure timely completion of the projects. Redeveloping buildings, even though they are in a dilapidated condition, and have been first constructed decades back, will now be allowed. Mumbai police personnel will have themselves constructed 50,000 tenements as well, now that the housing ministry has a plan for them too. Meanwhile, alleging the government for “stalling projects”, BJP MLA Ashish Shelar, has demanded white paper on the slum rehabilitation projects. PTI