DDA had introduced the forfeiture clause, penalty ranging from 25% to 100%, in a bid to ensure that only serious buyers applied under the scheme.

Surbhi Prasad

With just four days left for the deadline, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has managed to get only 22,000 applications for its 2017 housing scheme. Of these, only 8,000 are for lower-income group (LIG) houses, which comprise more than 11,000 of the 12,000 houses on offer, a senior official at the authority said. For its last housing scheme, which was launched in September 2014, DDA had offered 25,034 flats — EWS, LIG, MIG, HIG, Janta flats and one-room apartments, ranging in prices from Rs 7 lakh to Rs 1.2 crore. The scheme then had received over 10 lakh applications.

Officials at DDA are, however, still hopeful. “Final data will be known by September 11. The number of applications may rise in the last two-three days, as people usually submit applications in the last days,” the official said. DDA had launched the scheme on June 30 with 12,072 flats, of which 87 are high-income group (HIG) flats and 404 are two-room middle-income group (MIG) flats. The remaining 11,197 are one-bedroom lower-income group flats (LIG) and 384 janta flats. The last date to submit applications was August 11.

However, last month, following poor response from the public, the DDA extended the deadline to apply for the 2017 housing scheme by a month, till September 11. Officials said the authority had received just about 8,000 applications for 12,072 flats up for sale.

Last month, in a bid to attract more buyers for the scheme, DDA had also relaxed the forfeiture clause as banks were not giving loans due to the clause. DDA had introduced the forfeiture clause, penalty ranging from 25% to 100%, in a bid to ensure that only serious buyers applied under the scheme.

DDA officials were expecting the scheme to do well since it was coming three years after the last housing scheme in 2014. It had got 5 lakh forms printed in the first phase itself. The scheme has been a flop this time. Each form costs the urban body Rs 30. Roughly calculating, even if 4 lakh forms are left unsold, it will cause a loss of about Rs 1.2 crore to the authority.

For the LIG category, the registration fee is Rs 1,00,000 while for the MIG and HIG flats, Rs 2,00,000 is charged. Of the total 12,072 flats, most are in Rohini, Dwarka, Narela, Vasant Kunj and Jasola, while 10,000 unoccupied flats are from a 2014 housing scheme, which were returned for being too small. The costs of the flats vary from Rs 7.5 lakh to Rs 1.44 crore.