12 years on, housing for cops to take off

MUMBAI: Twelve years after it was, a private housing project for Mumbai police constables for which 6,000 constables collected hundreds of crores of rupees still stands incomplete. Many of the policemen, who were expecting to get their dream houses have either retired or passed away.

On Friday, some of the constables who had contributed to the scheme gathered at Shanmukhanand Hall in Sion for the general body meeting of the Brihanmumbai Police Cooperative Housing Society, which was floated in 2011 to help the constables get their houses.

A decision to go for self-redevelopment was taken, clearing obstacles that have stalled the project for all these years.

The chairperson of the society, former senior IPS Pratap Dighavkar, one of the founder members of the scheme, responded to the queries posed by the constables.

Dighavkar promised that the policemen will get their houses soon, according to one of the retired police constables present in the meeting. When HT tried to contact Dighavkar, he did not respond.

Former MLA Chandrashekhar Prabhu said he attended the meeting to help the constables get their dream houses soon under the self-redevelopment scheme. “This will not require them to pay any more money and would get them the free houses without even paying for any maintenance with many amenities like school and a shopping mall within the complex,” he said.

The amount for the project was collected from 5,935 policemen. Each of them contributed amounts ranging from ₹1.25 lakh to 3 lakh each. The beneficiaries ranged from the rank of constable to assistant sub-inspector. A land parcel measuring 120 acres in Vayal at Khalapur, Raigad was bought to construct these houses. The constables were promised 2BHK flats with a carpet area of 650 square feet and the committee members purchased the land on instalments paid between 2013 to 2016. However, the project could not take off.

Due to delays in the project, around 2,000 members withdrew their membership and took their refunds, a policeman present in the meeting added.

A retired policeman, Ganpat Vaman Sankpal, 65, said, “I became a member and paid ₹1.21 lakh in 2012. There were several promises like the 2BHK house costing ₹10 lakh. Later, we heard that we have to pay ₹30 lakh for each flat. In 2019, I paid ₹1.80 lakh again and I have all the receipts and records.” “While no decision has been made till now, the discussion did touch upon the idea of selling some part of the purchased land to build houses for constables,” Sankpal, who retired from RCF police station in 2016, said.

Another retired policeman, Subhash Patil, said, “I paid ₹1.20 lakh in 2012, and now I am hoping that we will get a house soon”.

Prabhu said, “Originally meant for 6,000 members, the scheme did not take off for 12 years despite acquiring 120 acres of land. The constables complained that whenever they went to check the progress of the project, they were rudely told to withdraw their money.”

In the last AGM, they were asked to contribute ₹30 lakhs each despite having paid the full cost of purchase of the 120 acres, he added.

Under the self-redevelopment scheme, the cops will get a house and enough corpus to pay for maintenance. The cost would be cross subsidised by utilising the FSI rendered surplus after accommodating existing members. They have also urged the government to apply the provisions of the GR dated September 13, 2019 to their scheme. “I would soon be briefing chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who are positive about helping the police constables. This is a great victory for the constables,” Prabhu said.