There is a severe shortage of houses in Mumbai but, there is no dearth of government agencies wanting to build houses. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which normally plans and executes infrastructure projects, has proposed to build 5 lakh houses in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) over the next 5 years.Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) are other agencies involved in similar activities.

Metropolitan commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad declared on Friday that MMRDA now plans to offer rental houses of 160 square feet each. MMRDA plans to take up construction of 50000 houses this year itself. The rent for these houses will range between Rs 800 and Rs l500 per month. The rental housing plan has been announced under the Slum Prevention Program (SPP). He pointed out SPP was an improvement over the slum rehabilitation program as it is aimed at providing affordable rental housing to migrants.

Mr. Gaikwad further said that SPP is a mix of several existing or old slum improvement and housing schemes like the old chawls in the island city which took care of early migrants like mill workers, dock workers etc to the city. The proposed rental houses would come with an attached toilet block unlike the chawls. MMRDA has earmarked Rs 100 crore for SPP.

In Mumbai and its suburbs, SPP offers a significant business opportunity to builders as MMRDA plans to take the public-private partnership (PPP) option to build houses. But in the larger metropolitan region which runs much beyond Panvel, Badlapur and Vasai-Virar, Mr Gaikwad said the PPP option may not be feasible.

Mr Gaikwad further said “As in the case of infrastructure projects in Mumbai where project affected persons (PAPs) are rehabilitated by the developer on his own land in lieu of transferable development rights (TDR) for both land and construction, we will be offering TDR to the builder as an incentive to make rental housing stock available”.

Mr. Gaikwad said that in the metropolitan region, MMRDA will develop housing stock on its own. In return, the agency expects the state government to compensate by granting additional floor space index on the site itself. The metropolitan commissioner said the agency would sell the additional FSI at market rate to compensate for the rental housing programme. MMRDA has identified sites at Thane, Dombivli, Ulhasnagar, and Karjat and plans to start construction work on these sites in four to five months.