Panaji: Chief Minister Pramod Sawant announced on Thursday that the 'Mhajo Flat' scheme, unveiled in the state budget, will be rolled out within 15 days. The initiative aims to resolve a long-standing legal tangle that has left between 30,000 and 40,000 flat owners across Goa unable to register their properties in their own names.
Sawant stated that thousands of flat buyers, despite purchasing their homes decades ago, have no formal ownership on record. In many cases, the land on which residential complexes stand remains in the name of the original landowner, who is either deceased or no longer in Goa to sign transfer documents.
“There are cases where even old buildings of 40 years still have the land in the name of the original owner, who is not there to sign the documents today. The builder has also moved to Mumbai. But the flat owner is waiting — two of his generations have lived in the flat — but he cannot do anything,” Sawant said. “This needs to be resolved so that the flat can be in the person’s name.”
Under the scheme, the registrar will sign the deemed conveyance on behalf of the landowner or builder and hand over flat ownership rights to the purchaser. Currently, even after a customer has paid the total amount to the builder for a flat, the buyer often remains stuck between the landowner and the builder. Typically, there is an agreement of sale between the flat purchaser and the builder. However, many flat owners have not received ownership rights, nor have builders formed societies to transfer the rights to flat owners.
To provide these rights, the government announced the Mhajo Flat scheme and will implement the deemed conveyance scheme. The announcement came at the inauguration of the new head office of the registrar of cooperative societies, Sahakar Seva Bhavan, at Merces. Sawant said it will take approximately a month for the office to shift completely from its current rented premises at the Goa State Cooperative Bank building to the restored structure at Merces.
The newly acquired building offers around 870 square meters of built-up space across two storeys, restored by the Public Works Department at a cost of approximately Rs 2.4 crore. Goa has approximately 5,600 cooperative societies, of which around 3,000 are housing cooperative societies, and 1,450 are self-help groups.
Sawant emphasized that the cooperative policy must become more transparent, and Goa has the potential to be number one in the country's cooperative sector.
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