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The Haryana Government’s scheme for providing affordable housing, named Deen Dayal Jan Awas Yojna (DDJAY), has been suspended in Gurugram and Faridabad districts by the Haryana Government due to its “unaffordability” to the common people.

According to sources, the decision was taken after Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar raised the issue of affordable housing pricing in the two districts with the departments concerned. In the two districts, the CM objected strongly to the high property prices that made housing out of reach for the common man and the lack of a cap on the prices. Because of the high land cost in these two districts, plots under this scheme have become prohibitively expensive due to the high cost of land.

A total of 40 licenses have already been granted to Faridabad under the Deen Dayal Jan Awas Yojna (DDJAY) for about 369 acres. Gurugram has 62 licences for almost 695 acres under the DDJAY. For achieving sustainable development goals, it has been decided to grant letters of intent (LoI) to 24 projects in Gurugram that cover 211 acres of area and four Faridabad projects covering 32.66 acres of area.

As per the information available, 382 licenses have been issued for 4,200 acres of land, and 76,500 plots are to be subdivided across the state between now and January 2022. According to sources, this scheme was designed primarily for Haryana towns with low or medium potential. In later years, this initiative was expanded to include towns with high potential. Afterwards, Gurugram and Faridabad were added to the list.

It was designed to curb the mushrooming of unauthorised colonies in Haryana, which was the original purpose of the affordable housing scheme. The project aimed to provide affordable housing for all. The government has decided to discontinue the scheme in these two districts since land rates are so high that developers cannot offer these plots at affordable prices,” an officer explained.

As part of its policy, the government made concessions for the scheme and relaxed its norms to keep it affordable. Several concessions have been made to the licence fees to reduce the cost per unit. Nevertheless, it didn’t make a big difference in the two districts where land prices are high,” another officer explained.

The government even suggested that a commercial area could be developed within the periphery of a project to reduce the cost of these units. It would mean that these could be built on municipal land. There was no conclusion to any of these plans,” officials said.