Over 12,000 picked to get DDA flats

NEW DELHI: Krishan Prasad was thrilled to see DDA's list of successful applicants for the housing scheme 2017 on Thursday. Prasad, a vegetable vendor in south Delhi, and two of his close friends are among the 12,617 applicants selected by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) through a draw of lots to own a house in Delhi.

"I have no word to express my happiness," said Prasad, who has got a house in Narela in his first first attempt. "I had borrowed Rs 1 lakh from my friends to pay the initial amount along with the application," he added. Prasad is also happy for his friends, Anil Kumar Pal and Rekha Devi, who have got flats in Rohini and Narela, respectively. "They were not interested in applying. But I convinced them to do so."

At the DDA headquarters, anxious applicants waited for nearly two hours for the result. "But it was worth the wait. I have got a flat in Rohini," said Nutan Singh, who came with her two-year-old daughter.



While 100-plus people turned up at the DDA office, close to 50,000 people saw it live on webcast. Officials said the draw was conducted in a transparent manner using a random number generation technique. "The seed numbers for applicants and flats were picked in the presence of many people. The entire process was computerised," said J P Agarwal, principal commissioner housing, DDA.

The land-owning authority, which had been planning for this scheme for over a year, had received close to 46,000 applications for the flats — a majority of which were returned by allottees of the 2014 housing scheme. The flats were returned due to various factors, including small room sizes and lack of infrastructure in these areas. "But we have got a good response this time. By the time we start handing over the flats, the pending infrastructure work will be completed," said an official.

Though DDA had allowed people to see the flats before applying for the scheme, a majority of successful applicants had not seen them. "I had applied for investment purpose. I have not seen the area," said Kanishk, a businessman who lives in Noida and has got a LIG flat in Narela.

However, many had to return disappointed. Khemchand, a retired government employee, said he had applied for the third time. "Once again, I wasn't lucky. DDA had extended the deadline for application as they didn't get a good response initially. They shouldn't have extended it," he rued.

DDA officials said the process to issue demand-cum-allotment letters would start in a month. "Allottees will get three months to deposit the money. After that, they will have to pay 12% interest," said Agarwal.