MHADA Mumbai housing lottery applications cross 90,000 ahead of Thursday deadline

The ongoing lottery for the allotment of 2,030 houses under the Mumbai regional board of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has now received more than 90,000 applications, with more than 70,000 paying the earnest money deposit as required under the various categories in the lottery. Officials said that they expect around 1 lakh applications before the deadline on September 19.

According to latest figures provided by MHADA officials, the authority has received 94,733 applications, of which 70,562 paid the earnest money deposit. Officials said they expect more than one lakh applications by the end of the application process. Last year, MHADA's Mumbai board received 1,22,318 applications for the 4,082 tenements under lottery.

Around half of the 2,030 tenements are meant for the general public, with MHADA reporting that 78,437 applications have been received for around 1,038 units. The lottery also has reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, notified and de-notified tribes, journalists, arts professionals, elected representatives, central and state government officers, and others.

Nearly all of the tenements under various reservations received applications far exceeding their numbers. The only exception were units reserved for elected representatives, under which only four applications were received for 33 units. For this year's lottery, 358 units have been reserved for the economically weaker sections, 627 units for low-income group, 768 units under the middle-income group category, and the rest are for the high-income group category.