Already in choppy waters, the Sector 53 general housing scheme is mired in more uncertainty as UT chief secretary Rajeev Verma, who is also the chairman of the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB), has asked the board officers to conduct a fresh demand survey for the scheme.

On Friday, CHB officers made a presentation regarding the scheme before the chief secretary, who questioned whether a demand survey had been conducted.

As the officers responded that it was last conducted in 2018, Verma asked them to conduct it afresh before giving a final presentation before UT administrator Gulab Chand Kataria.

Notably, former UT administrator Banwarilal Purohit had put the housing scheme on hold on August 3, 2023, citing there was no requirement for it.

Consequently, CHB had cancelled the ₹200-crore tenders floated on August 2 for construction of 340 flats on nine acres.

But hopes for the scheme’s revival were rekindled after Kataria, in November 2024, instructed CHB to submit an updated presentation.

The scheme was previously also scrapped in 2018 due to poor response from buyers, primarily due to high flat prices. But it was revived in February 2023 with lower prices.

Under the revived plan, the board had planned to offer 340 flats in three categories — 192 three-bedroom, 100 two-bedroom and 48 two-bedroom EWS flats, for ₹1.65 crore, ₹1.40 crore and ₹55 lakh, respectively.

When the scheme was first floated in 2018, the three-bedroom flat was offered for as high as ₹1.8 crore, two-bedroom flat for ₹1.5 crore and one-bedroom flat for ₹95 lakh.

CHB yet to explore options for IT Park housing scheme

In November last year, the UT administrator had also directed CHB to explore alternative options to obtain green clearance for the IT Park housing scheme at Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park (RGCTP) — which was put on hold due to environmental concerns.

But even after two months, CHB officers have not taken any step to explore the options, said a senior officer of the UT administration.

In October 2022, the Union ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) had refused to approve the scheme, citing that the project site fell within the eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of the Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary.

The UT administration had subsequently clarified in a written response that the project site is located 1.25 km beyond the ESZ, where construction is permissible, and that the project is approved in the Chandigarh Master Plan-2031.

The 16-acre land for the IT Park project is part of the 123 acres that CHB had retrieved from Parsvnath Developers in 2015 after a long-drawn legal battle.

The housing scheme, comprising 728 flats in three categories, was initially approved by the CHB board of directors in December 2020. It included 28 four-bedroom flats, 448 three-bedroom flats, and 252 two-bedroom flats, planned across two plots measuring 10.51 acres and 6.43 acres, respectively.