‘Ghar nu ghar’ is major issue: 52,000 forms collected for 52 vacant affordable housing flats

Surat, 17 July 2013

This example shows gravity of burning problem of availability of affordable housing in our cities. As many as 52,000 forms were collected from Surat Municipal Corporation(SMC) offices for just 52 vacant flats in various affordable housing schemes of SMC!

Surat Municipal Corporation noticed that 13 flats in VAMBAY(Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana) housing scheme, 32 flats in EWS(Economically Weaker Sections) scheme and 7 flats in LIG(Low Income Groups) scheme – thus total 52 flats were unoccupied as per the latest survey. The SMC published advertisements inviting applications for these flats.

As per the advertisement, only below poverty line(BPL) applicants could apply for VAMBAY housing flats, while for EWS housing flats only those earning less than Rs. 1 lakh per year could apply. For LIG housing, an applicant must be in category of Rs. 1-2 lakh income per year. SMC distributed forms between 17 June and 2 July, and applicants(eligible or not eligible) collected as many as 52,000 forms. As the last date of submitting forms is 20 July, long queues are seen at SMC civic centers for submission of forms across Surat.

An applicant needs to deposit some money while submitting his/her form, therefore number of actual applications will be lesser than the total number of forms collected. For every category of housing, there’s a fix criteria, therefore the total number of valid applications will be even lesser. However the figure of total forms collected shows gravity of problem of affordable housing.