MHADA Demands 100 Hectares in Merged Villages for Affordable Housing
The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has written a letter to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and Pune Metropolitan Development Authority (PMRDA), demanding that 100 hectare land be reserved in the development plan (DP) of the newly-merged villages for the purpose of affordable housing. The PMC is presently preparing a DP of the 11 fringe villages that merged in 2017 but the state has handed over the DP of 23 newly-merged villages to the PMRDA as planning authority. Nitin Mane, CEO of the MHADA Pune board, said, “We have sent a letter to the PMC as well as PMRDA to reserve land for an affordable housing scheme in the Pune region. The final decision will be taken by both authorities. We need 100 hectare of land in these merged villages. PMC and PMRDA have started preparation of the DP of fringe villages. So, we have suggested that land be reserved for MHADA.” “Now, we have affordable housing schemes across 176 hectare land in the PMC and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) limits. There is no open land available in the existing PMC and PCMC areas. We don’t have a ‘land bank’ to develop new schemes in these areas. So, we have requested PMC and PMRDA to reserve land,” he said. Rajendra Raut, Chief Superintendent Engineer and Head of the DP cell of PMC, said, “MHADA is a government body and it can raise demand. We will make a decision as per the available land.” PMC has already started schemes under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) to provide affordable housing to the economically weaker sections (EWS) and lower income groups (LIG). We have set a target to provide more than 1 lakh affordable houses in the PMC limit. We already have a shortage of land for the PMAY schemes. Therefore, I don’t think we should have to give land to any other government authority for the same purpose.
Tags : News/Views Affordable Housing MHADA villages Demands Hectares Merged