Maharashtra government revises income slabs for buyers of affordable homes

Representative image.

The Maharashtra government has revised the income slabs- a criteria to determine who is eligible to purchase affordable homes constructed by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA).

In a notification issued on May 14, the Maharashtra housing department said that the annual income slab for the economically weaker section (EWS) has been increased to Rs 6 lakh for those residing in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur Metropolitan Region, and Rs 4.5 lakh for the rest of the state. Earlier, the income slab cap for the EWS category was a monthly family income up to Rs 25,000, or Rs 3 lakh a year.

For the lower-income group or LIG segment, the annual income limit was raised to Rs 9 lakh for Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur Metropolitan Region and Rs 7.5 lakh elsewhere, going up from Rs 25,001 to Rs 50,000 monthly income (upper limit of Rs 6 lakh a year) for the entire state. Further, the income slab for middle-income group (MIG) families, which was Rs 50,001 to Rs 75,000 a month (upper limit of Rs 9 lakh annually) for the entire state has been revised to up to Rs 12 lakh statewide.

Families earning an annual income of over Rs 12 lakh fall in the high-income group (HIG) category, up from the Rs 9 lakh limit earlier. There is no upper limit set for HIG category.

The revised income slabs are expected to come into effect with the upcoming draw of around 5,000 affordable homes by MHADA in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The last revision of income slabs was undertaken in 2016 citing the need to match the income limits defined by the Union government under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) scheme.

In addition, the carpet area for affordable homes has now been defined as up to 30 square meters for the EWS category, up to 60 sq m for the LIG category, up to 160 sq m for the MIG segment and up to 200 sq m for HIG families.

Interestingly, those who fall in the EWS segment can apply for houses in all categories, if they can afford the correspondingly higher prices followed by LIG for MIG and MIG for HIG category flats.

The new notification by the Maharashtra housing department was necessitated by the fact that the area stipulated in each slab under PMAY was larger than under the state’s regulations even as average income in the state was above the national average. Economic Survey 2020-2021 revealed that not only was the per capita income in Maharashtra higher than the all-India figure, the gap with the national average was wider when it came to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.