The Maharashtra government has decided to reduce the lock-in period for selling free flats to slum dwellers rehabilitated under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) projects from 10 years to seven years. This decision was taken in a recent Cabinet meeting, and the state Housing Department is issuing a notification.
Initially, the department had proposed to allow the sale of free houses after just three years, but the Law & Judiciary Department opposed it, arguing that the SRA scheme was meant to provide shelter to homeless slum dwellers and not to allow them to profit from free tenements.
Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who also holds the housing portfolio, intervened, and the lock-in period was reduced to seven years. The existing provisions of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement Clearance and Redevelopment) Act 1971 state that those living in slums built until January 1, 2000 cannot be removed without a free rehabilitation tenement.
In May 2018, the state government decided to provide houses to ‘ineligible’ slum dwellers residing in hutments built before January 1, 2011, but not for free. In their case, it decided to charge construction cost for the tenement and set the sub-committee deciding this cost.
The state Cabinet decided to charge such slum dwellers a sum of INR 2.5 lakh. This move is expected to benefit slum dwellers who have been rehabilitated under SRA projects by giving them the freedom to sell their flats earlier, thereby improving their economic status.
