Ludhiana’s Long Stalled Atal Apartments Draw of Lots on Jan 10

The much-awaited draw of lots for the allotment of Atal Apartments is on January 10. After 13 years and two stone laying, the Improvement Trust will at last build these flats over 8.8 acres near the Pakhowal road. The applicants can check their names on a list that the LIT has put on its website. The LIT claims that the HIG (high-income group) flats had received a better response than the MIG (middle-income group) flats and the draw will be conducted under the Covid protocol, which has been conveyed to the applicants. Of the 576 flats, 336 are HIG and 240 MIG. The HIG flats have 770 applicants under the general category and 66 under the other categories such as freedom fighters and their widows and children, defence personnel, Border Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force, riot-affected people, and government employees. The MIG flats have 151 applicants under the general category and 14 under the other categories. The project includes community centre, medicine shops, and gym. After the allotment, the project will take three years to complete. There will be a multi-storey parking lot for 225 cars. LIT chairman Raman Balasubramanium said: “For the sake of transparency, we will call random applicants to draw the chits. If there are fewer applications in the MIG category than the number of flats, then the LIT will offer those houses to those who missed out in the HIG category, and hold another draw of lots for them on the spot.” Claiming that the project was reliable and the trust will deliver it in a fixed time, he mentioned that even his son was among the applicants. The Atal Apartments scheme has been hanging fire since 2008. Its foundation stone was laid twice, first in 2011 by the-then local bodies minister Tikshan Sood and the second time on December 16, 2021, by chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi.