HIDCO starts lottery for plots

Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) on Tuesday started the lottery to distribute 75 plots in New Town.

There are more than 4,000 applicants. The online application started on January 28 and continued till April 30. The area of the plots vary between 2.5 cottahs and 4. 5 cottahs.

The lottery was held in the auditorium of Karigari Bhavan. It will be held in the same venue on Wednesday and will be held at Nazrul Mancha on Thursday and Friday.

There was absolute transparency in the process. On Tuesday, the lottery was held for nine plots where housing cooperatives will come up. In the morning session, there was lottery for four plots which will be given to government employees while in the afternoon session, there was lottery for five more plots for the general public. The plots are situated close to the Owl More (Pancha More).

At the lottery, plastic tokens bearing Unique Application Numbers (UAN) were given to the applicants who in turn put them in a round drum one by one after reading out the UANs. Lots were drawn by another applicant and no employee of HIDCO drew the lot to maintain absolute transparency. The money will be refunded to the unsuccessful applicants within two weeks.

Out of the 75 plots that will be distributed, individual houses will come up on 58 plots while housing complexes will be set up on 17 plots. Of the 58 plots, 25 plots are meant for people belonging to the Middle Income Group (MIG) and the remaining 33 plots are meant for the Higher Income Group (HIG). HIDCO will e-auction 25 plots after the Pujas.

It may be recalled that after coming to power in 2011, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee abolished the quota reserved for the chairman of HIDCO as lots of allegations had been made against distribution of plots during the Left Front regime. She asked the HIDCO officials to maintain transparency in distribution of plots and made an IAS officer Debashis Sen its chairman.