Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) lottery to get a tech makeover

Applicantions to be updated through email, text messages. Post-lottery system to be computerised

There is good news for people whose only hope of owning a flat in Mumbai depends on their luck in the annual lottery of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA).

From this year, the applicants will no longer have to scan through the list of winners online or wait for postal intimation.

The MHADA will regularly update the status of their application, selected or rejected, via emails and text messages.

Similarly the post-lottery system will soon be integrated with the computerised lottery system so that a winner can check the status of his file in real time. Currently, the system is manually operated.

The post-lottery system is the stage between lottery allotment and occupation of tenements. In this stage, MHADA checks the lottery winners' documents, determine their eligibility and hear appeals by those who are declared ineligible. "We are also thinking of introducing the facility of making online payments. However, we have kept that optional since most of the houses that the MHADA releases are for people with low-income levels and they may not have access to computers and net banking facilities," said Niranjankumar Sudhanshu, chief officer of MHADA Mumbai board.

To include these technological advances into the current lottery software, the MHADA has sought the help IT firms. So far five companies — Wipro, Mastek Ltd, Probity Software Pvt Ltd, Trimax IT Infra and Services Ltd and ABM Knowledgeware Ltd — have evinced interest and attended the pre-bid meeting.

The firm which is selected for the task will have to develop and operate the software for a contract period of 16 months and train the MHADA officials so that they can takeover the operations from 2014.

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