A white paper on the Group Housing Project of MUDA, since the days of the legendary CITB Chairman D. Madegowda, should be published before the government clears the present DPR

By K.B. Ganapathy, Senior Journalist

Mysore/Mysuru: The information that the MUDA is launching a Group Housing Project in                  different layouts and in different phases is no good news. The past experience of low income, middle income and the higher income group of people is not a happy one.

When D. Madegowda was the CITB Chairman (1986-1988), a similar project was undertaken and the beneficiaries were selected to a great extent in a fair and just manner. However, soon thereafter, corruption began to plague this project. I remember to have helped a middle income group widow who had purchased a MIG House near Vivekananda Circle. The house had no Underground Drainage (UGD) connection nor electricity. The windows and doors had to be replaced for obvious reasons. The lady had to spend extra money as a result.

Small wonder, when there are mass housing and multi-storeyed apartment projects under the Slum Clearance Board and other government agencies, should the MUDA rush into an area where it has already muddied its hands. The city will not definitely “witness significant urban developments” as claimed in the reports under this Group Housing Project.

Group Housing Projects by MUDA is a very complex, complicated and venal one involving so many agencies and complaints as experienced in the past. Apart from financial issues, there are other issues like completing the project on scheduled date. MUDA never delivered houses on schedule                                                           in the past and no guarantee that it will happen in the future. The beneficiary or allottee may have made the payment as per the demand on time but the houses would never be delivered on time. These are the past experience of the aspirants of Group Housing Projects of MUDA.

Incidentally, MUDA Commissioner G.T. Dinesh Kumar, who was apparently involved in preparing this project, including the DPR, has been transferred and Arul Kumar has been appointed as new Commissioner. Inevitably, the new Commissioner needs time to study the DPR and take it forward.

In view of these complexities in the project, the best way for MUDA to help the beneficiaries is to allot the house sites of varying sizes that will suit the financial position of beneficiaries belonging to LIG, MIG and HIG and allow the allottees to build their own houses.

MUDA must stop becoming a house builder like in the past when the CITB was set up. Those were different times when the concept of private layouts and builders were not in vogue. The present MUDA has failed the beneficiaries in the matter of giving them houses under its Group Housing Project and there is no guarantee it will succeed now.

Anyway, should the government in its wisdom decide to go for Group Housing Project, the wisdom lies in giving the project on turn-key basis to private builders with MUDA’s role limited to providing land, identifying the beneficiaries and allotting the houses or apartments.