Team Herald
PANJIM: With eye on upcoming Assembly elections, the State government on Wednesday streamlined and reintroduced House Building Advance (HBA) Scheme.
Speaking to media persons post-cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said the State cabinet approved a proposal to streamline and reintroduce the HBA scheme for government employees.
Sawant said the employees would bear two per cent while, the State government would bear five per cent rate of interest.
The Goa government had closed the HBA scheme with effect from June 15, 2020 attracting criticism from thousands of government workers, who had availed loans.
Giving more details, Sawant said the government has now empanelled banks, who will release loans at the rate of two per cent directly to the beneficiary. The government will compensate the banks with balance five per cent rate of interest.
There are currently 1400 beneficiaries/borrowers of the HBA scheme and 45 pending applications who were awaiting sanction will be cleared and disbursed loans by the banks. But the new applicants will now avail housing loans from the State’s premier financial institution the Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which has devised a special scheme for this purpose, Sawant said.
adding that the new scheme will be fine-tuned and reintroduced within next four to five days.
When asked whether the decision to reintroduce the HBA scheme was taken after Law Minister Nilesh Cabral red flagged him that the withdrawal of the scheme could be hit by the doctrine of promissory estoppels, the Chief Minister said the cabinet unanimously decided to streamline and reintroduce the scheme for government workers.
Sawant said the earlier scheme was tedious and cumbersome. The scheme devised by EDC will be cheaper for the government as far as rate of interest is concerned.
On the other hand, the Goa Forward Party (GFP) demanded that the government should immediately issue a circular regarding the reintroduction of the scheme and should file an affidavit before the High Court of Bombay at Goa by Friday about the government’s decision.
It may be recalled that the Goa Judicial Officers Association, police officers and others had filed writ petitions before the High Court challenging the government’s decision to close the HBA scheme to government employees abruptly.
