Finally, DDA plans studio apartments for the elderly in Dwarka

Spread over 12 acres, the land has been identified in Sector-16 at Dwarka where the apartments, measuring around 550 sq ft each would be constructed, DDA on Wednesday said. The project would be a “joint venture” between the Delhi Development Authority and the Navy and both have agreed “in-principle” to work on it, a senior DDA official said.

“Indian Navy had earlier approached us for allotment of land for an old-age home for retired personnel. But, DDA later thought of scaling up the project, while including them in it. “So, we have both agreed in-principle on this and even the Authority has given in-principle approval to the project, but it will be put up for formal approval in its coming meeting,” the official said. DDA owns the land and will also build these apartments.

The joint venture would mean that “Navy would be managing the housing facilities, as they are efficient in it.” 

As per the plan, out of the nearly 1,550 apartments to be built in four years time, “about 200 of them would be earmarked for retired Navy personnel,” he said.

“The remaining units would be available for retired employees of central and state governments, armed forces, teaching faculty of government universities and colleges and DDA employees of certain grade pay/pay scale. The exact quota for each category would be worked out later,” the DDA said.

Once built, it would have metro connectivity and will be completely self-contained with retail, recreational and healthcare facilities, including nursing and ambulance services, it said. “The facility would be architecturally designed specifically for the elderly with features such as anti-skid flooring, especially in bathrooms and toilets, hand rails, ramps,” the urban body said. 

The present cost of the land earmarked for the project is approximately Rs 180 crore at the rate of nearly Rs 37,500 per sqm. The total cost of construction would be about Rs 282 crore with each unit costing nearly Rs 18.23 lakh. “The total cost borne by DDA would, therefore, be nearly Rs 462 crore,” the housing authority said in a statement.

Each allottee would pay an amount of Rs 2.2 lakh of which Rs 20,000 would be a one-time non-refundable registration fee and Rs 2 lakh would be adjusted at the time of allotment against the total premium, it said.

“Rs 8 lakh would be charged from each allottee at the time of allotment as a one-time premium.... If an allottee withdraws his/her membership and wishes to surrender the unit, Rs 1 lakh per year would be deducted proportionately from the one-time premium according to the number of years the unit was occupied,” the DDA said.