MHADA sets up panel to expedite revamp proposals

In a landmark decision, the Mumbai board of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) approved the formation of a redevelopment forum that would help to expedite the process of granting clearances to the redevelopment proposals. Only three out of the total 333 pending proposals of redevelopment of were presented before this month's board meeting. The three proposals relating to buildings in Versova, Kannamawar Nagar and Nehru Nagar were cleared by the board.

However, to expedite the pending redevelopment of the many MHADA buildings in the city, the Mumbai board has now approved the formation of a redevelopment forum that would start verifying all such proposals. The forum would be consisting of a seven engineers led by executive engineer RB Mitkar, who would be assisted by four divisional engineers and two deputy engineers.

These engineers would then forward the proposal to the architectural department for further scrutiny. If any discrepancies are found it would be let know to the developer and the society.

While the file would then be forwarded the Chief Officer (CO) who would then finally present the file in front of the board in the monthly board meeting. The process is claimed to be shortened as the joint CO has been deleted from the chain.

Claiming the shorter system of permissions required for the file to get the final nod, the chairman of the Mumbai board Amarjit Manhas said " this will definitely expedite the process and the pending files would be cleared in the next two months". The issue of slow clearances to the redevelopment proposals was raised by the board members in almost all the board meetings. The new formula would bring an end to these woes. " Once this process is followed four redevelopment proposals could be passed in a day, while currently only one proposal can be passed" said Manhas.

Till date, Mhada has received 699 redevelopment proposals, while clearance has been given to 369 including three on Tuesday, 330 proposals are pending which could now be cleared quickly.