The Centre has made a significant change to the income criteria for individuals falling under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category in the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana–Urban (PMAY-U) in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).
Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who is also Maharashtra Housing Minister had written to the Centre seeking review of the income criterion of EWS category.
Enhancement of the income slab aims at expanding eligibility and accessibility of affordable housing for individuals who belong to the EWS category.
Meanwhile, in the recently called Mumbai MHADA lottery for 4,082 houses, for which the deadline expired on July 12, the applicants missed a big opportunity to apply for PMAY houses. As per MHADA Public Relation Office, a total of 1,947 houses were offered under PMAY in this lottery for which it received 23,776 applications within the income slab of Rs 3 lakh.
Currently, for the affordable housing scheme taken up by Maharashtra government, the income slab for the EWS homebuyers is already Rs 6 lakh for those residing in MMR, Pune and Nagpur, and Rs 4.5 lakh for those living in the rest of the state. However, the same was not applicable for PMAY projects.