A rush of applicants for DDA Housing Scheme 2010

The sale of application forms for the Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) 16,000 flats began on a steady note on Thursday. At the Canara Bank branch outside DDA’s head office, a stream of people kept pouring through the day.

“ The price of the forms is not prohibitive, but you can buy only limited ones because the deposit is Rs 1.5 lakh. And the flats cannot be sold for the next 15 years,” said Rajesh Kumar, a central government employee, who had queued up to buy the form.

According to DDA officials, the demand for these forms is supposed to break all previous records and the DDA has ordered the printing of around 10 lakh forms.

As the forms can also be downloaded from the DDA website also, officials expect that there would be no shortage. Since the forms will be on sale for over a month, DDA officials claim that the queues in banks would not spill on to roads.

Several banks are also coming up with schemes to fund the initial deposit of Rs 1.5 lakh to be made to apply for the flats.

DDA officials have made it mandatory that the deposit and then the complete amount are only made from a single bank account. “ The income tax department will be apprised of all the buyers’ details. If discrepancies are noticed in the forms, we will forward the details to police,” said a DDA official.

The sale of forms will continue till December 24.

The flats are lucrative because they are below the prevailing market rates by 50 to 80 per cent, officials said. While the cheapest flats are available at Rs 1,536 per square feet, the expensive ones are priced at Rs 6,069 square feet. The draw for the flats will be held by April 2011.

While 17.5 per cent of the flats were reserved for Scheduled Castes, 7.5 per cent of them will go to Scheduled Tribes and 1 per cent each for war widows, physically handicapped and ex- servicemen.