HIDCO completes lottery of 75 plots in New Town

Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) on Friday completed the lottery to distribute 75 plots to set up individual homes and housing complexes in New Town.

More than 4,000 people had applied for the plots. The online registration was inaugurated at a function by the state Urban Development minister Firhad Hakim on January 28 and it continued till April 30. The areas of the plots vary anything between 2.5 cottah and 4.5 cottah. The plots are situated near Owl More (known as Pacha More in HIDCO's parlance).

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

Debashis Sen, chairman of HIDCO said apart from people of Kolkata, people from Assam, Siliguri, Burdwan had applied for the plots. The lottery was held for four days. It was held in the auditorium of Karigari Bhavan on Tuesday and Wednesday while on Thursday and Friday it was organised at Nazrul Tirtha.

There was absolute transparency in holding the lottery. The lots were drawn by the participants in presence of judges. Many of the applicants were present.

After coming to power in 2011, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee abolished the chairman's quota as there were allegations of malpractice during the Left Front regime.

Gautam Deb, the Housing minister in the Left Front regime was the founder chairman of HIDCO. During his tenure, nobody knew the price or area of the land and the plots were allotted secretly.

Banerjee not only abolished the chairman's quota but also made a senior IAS officer Debashis Sen, the chairman of HIDCO breaking the convention that people's representatives are usually made chairman of different government agencies. The overwhelming response of the applicants shows that New Town is coming up in a very big way and is becoming a residential, educational and commercial hub of Bengal.