HAVING IMPROVED recovery of dues for its low-cost homes sold in its draw of affordable houses over the past few years, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has projected a surplus in 2016-17. This comes as a welcome change after several years of posting deficits. The housing authority, in fact, is expecting to bring over 10,000 houses on the block this year around.

Pegging the receipts at Rs 6,508.19 crore, the MHADA on Monday approved one of the highest budgets in the past many years, said S S Zende, vice president and chief executive officer.

He said, “Recovery of our pending payments has been very strong in the past one year, with officials taking stock of the dues in every head of department meeting. The momentum is expected to continue in the coming year, and is a major reason for MHADA to be able to approve a surplus budget. This is also the first time in eight to ten years that the authority has approved such a large budget.”

He added that the authority would present a supplementary budget sometime in May to allocate funds for the redevelopment and repairs of buildings built under the Prime Minister’s Grants Project, for which MHADA has currently allocated Rs 25 crore.

“The revenue department is yet to transfer many of these buildings in MHADA’s name, and till that happens we cannot budget for works on the building,” Zende said.

For 2016-17, MHADA has projected receipts of Rs 6,508.19 crore and an expenditure of Rs 5,420.48 crore, leaving the authority with a surplus of Rs 1,087.71 crore. 

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