Many allottees of the Rajasthan Housing Board (RHB) schemes across the state will now have to wait for a longer period to own their dream houses as the board had decided to cancel tenders for several housing projects.
According to the officials the decision was taken after receiving higher tender prices by the contractors as it would have increased the estimated construction cost per housing unit. Commissioner of the housing board, Neeraj K Pawan, said, “We will cancel the tenders which are above the rates as they will increase the construction cost.” However, he claimed, “Efforts will be made that no housing scheme is delayed and counter offer will be made to the contractor.”
Official sources claimed that this year RHB has received 30% above the BSR rates. Source said, “In the recent past RHB had accepted 5 to 10% above rates and this gave confidence to contactors. “The RHB allottees are already paying more as the BSR rates are higher as compared to Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) and Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC).
Sources claimed that it is a situation of total loss for the allottees because when the project will be delayed the project cost is expected to rise due to increase in construction cost. Even if the houses are constructed by the contractors on higher rates, they have to shell out more money.
In the past there have been incidents where allottees had to give more money after allotments. For instance delay in construction of the Dwarkapuri phase-I project has increased the price. An official said RHB had launched the scheme for families earning Rs 5,000 or less per month. However, with increase in instalments the allottees had to shell out Rs 4,900 per month. The housing scheme proposed in 2006 for BPL families was expected to be completed by 2008. The estimated cost of the houses was Rs 2.85 lakh which increased to Rs 5.70 lakh.
The RHB houses are already getting out of reach for the common man due to increase in construction cost and reserve prices. A year ago, RHB had increased the prices by 40 to 50% and in some areas the price also increased by 100%. Moreover, RHB has made a change in the slabs of various income groups. The board has extended the purview of various income groups and introduced new ceiling of income for the people to apply for houses under different categories in RHB’s upcoming residential schemes.
src: TOI