Hyderabad: 2BHK allottees may lose their houses

Mayor instructs civic body to rope in private agency for survey of applicants.

Update: 2019-05-30 19:18 GMT
Hyderabad mayor Bonthu Rammohan

Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has bad news for those who have applied for the free double bedroom housing project. It has decided to put applications received so far into cold storage and conduct a fresh survey to identify the beneficiaries for the 10,000 2BHK houses which are almost ready.

On the instructions of city mayor Bonthu Rammohan, the GHMC has brought in a private agency to work with the district collectorates to identify those eligible.

Through this exercise, those who have already applied under JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission), Rajiv Gruha Kalpa (RGK), VAMBAY (Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana) and other schemes will be exempted through Aadhaar seeding.

According to highly placed sources, when mayor Bonthu Rammohan enquired about the number of beneficiaries that had applied for about 1 lakh double bedroom houses in the city, he was shocked to learn that the number was over 10 lakh.

It was discovered that people had paid middlemen Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 lakh to ensure they get a house. There were also applicants who had already benefitted from earlier housing schemes such as JNNURM, RGK, Vambay etc.

Moreover, all the members of a family have applied both manually and online to ensure each gets a house.

Thus, the number of applicants in GHMC limits went over 10 lakh in Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Medchal-Malkajgiri and Sangareddy districts.

With no mechanism in place to identify the true beneficiaries, middlemen and duplicate allotments has been going on since five years.

A senior GHMC official, on the condition of anonymity, said that the mayor has instructed the corporation to hire an agency to identify the true beneficiaries and to avoid duplication.

He said that the corporation and district collectorates will identify those who have already benefited from previous housing schemes, through Aadhaar seeding, and their names will be displayed in all district collectorates.

In the meantime, the official said, no applications will be processed and people will have to apply afresh. “After identifying the beneficiaries, about 10,000 2BHK houses which are almost complete will be sanctioned to them. This exercise would require at least 90 days time,” the source said.

Applicants have been told not to visit the collectorate offices but to apply through mee seva centres and the status of their application will be notified at regular intervals once the scrutiny begins.

However, the officials in order to regulate irregularities in the 2BHK housing scheme the state government is planning to charge a nominal rent for some time and authorities will make regular surprise inspections to verify that the true beneficiary is residing in it.

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