New Delhi: Lucky winners of DDA's housing scheme will begin the New Year on a joyous note as the housing authority will start handing over the flats from January 1.
Top officials at the DDA said except for a few flats in Sirsapur area and Rohini, the rest are ready and hence they would be handed over in the month of January.
"We are going to start the process of handing over of the flats for successful allottees from January 1. While the allottees of Dwarka would get their flats on the New Year's Day, the Narela allottees will receive them from January 15 and those of Rohini from January 25. The process will continue till January 31," a senior official of the DDA said.
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The DDA recently held camps for the successful applicants of houses alloted in Dwarka Sector 23B, and said the response was very good.
"We held a three-day camp at our Vikas Sadan for the allottees in Dwarka Sector 23B, where they were asked to bring necessary documents, affidavits, biographical details, among others, required for official allotment. Advertisements were also put out in newspapers regarding the same. Now, we will also hold camps for allottees in other areas" the official said.
DDA for the first time has done away with attestation procedure by a gazetted employee and the documents can now be self-attested, she said.
"During the camps for Dwarka 23B allottees at our headquarters at INA, we had eight counters, and we also have opened a special counter (No 4) for those who had a deficiency in submission of their documents, to come and later submit the missing documents," the official added.
The 'DDA Housing Scheme 2014', launched on September 1 saw such an overwhelming response that the urban body's website crashed within few hours of its launch and totalled about 18 lakh hits in the first few days, prompting authorities to ramp up the system to "handle the exponential rise in online traffic".
The new scheme, 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, and closed on October 15.
Among them, the 22,627 one-bed room apartments were a major draw for the people.
The beginning of handing over of the flats will come as a major relief to people, as the draw of the lots for the flagship housing scheme, could only be conducted after much draw, owing to "technological constraints" faced by the DDA.
The draw was held on November 25 under the supervision of retired Delhi High Court judge Manju Goel, National Informatics Centre DG Mahesh Chandra, and IIT-Delhi professor Anshul Kumar.
On reports of "delays" in refunding of the deposit money for unsuccessful applicants, officials said, "delays if any is not from the DDA said, but mere incidental ones."
"As promised we transferred back all the deposited money of such applicants to the 18 empanelled banks by December 18 and as per the directions of our vice-chairman, the banks were then to refund the same by cheque or through online transaction. If the delays are occurring, they must be from the banks' end or for logistic reasons. We haven't delayed the process at all," the official said.
The DDA in the scheme also introduced the facility of webcasting online the entire process of the draw which decided the fate of over 10 lakh applicants.
The response to the scheme was rather "lukewarm", which the officials ascribed to the "five-year lock-in period mandated on the ownership of the flat".
DDA's Vice-Chairman Balvinder Kumar said, "The scheme tested our capabilities and the challenge is not over even thought the scheme is closed. Even after allotment, the maintenance and furnishing of other features will be something that would keep us on our toes."
