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By:

Bhalchandra Chorghade

11 August 2025 at 7:24:18 pm

CIDCO struggles to find takers for its homes

Mumbai: The City and Industrial Development Corporation’s (CIDCO) latest housing scheme has exposed a recurring challenge for the planning authority: finding buyers for its large housing inventory despite its affordable-housing focus. The August 2026 scheme offered 4,793 homes in Taloja, Kharghar and Kalamboli and received 4,180 confirmed applications before bookings closed on September 3. While CIDCO described the response as strong, 613 homes—nearly 13 per cent of the inventory—had no...

CIDCO struggles to find takers for its homes

Mumbai: The City and Industrial Development Corporation’s (CIDCO) latest housing scheme has exposed a recurring challenge for the planning authority: finding buyers for its large housing inventory despite its affordable-housing focus. The August 2026 scheme offered 4,793 homes in Taloja, Kharghar and Kalamboli and received 4,180 confirmed applications before bookings closed on September 3. While CIDCO described the response as strong, 613 homes—nearly 13 per cent of the inventory—had no confirmed applicant. This follows earlier schemes with similar gaps. In January 2025, CIDCO’s ‘My Preferred Home’ scheme, offering around 26,000 homes across Navi Mumbai, attracted 1.36 lakh initial applications. However, only about 55,000 applicants paid the registration fee and around 22,000 deposited the required earnest money, leaving serious participation below the number of homes offered. A CAG-linked report on two CIDCO housing schemes in Kharghar found that, of 4,814 saleable tenements, allotment letters had been issued to 3,733 applicants and possession handed over to 3,317. Four years after the draw, 1,081 tenements remained unsold. CIDCO has also faced scrutiny over marketing expenditure. In 2023, reports questioned the appointment of private agencies to market and allot PMAY homes, stating that the agencies had received advances of more than Rs 100 crore before sales took place. CIDCO officials said external support was necessary given the scale of the programme. The scale of investment adds to the concern. CIDCO’s mass-housing programme envisaged 68,515 homes at an estimated cost of around Rs 15,300 crore. A 2024 report noted that thousands of completed homes were awaiting sale, locking up capital and increasing the authority’s financial burden. The latest homes are located in Taloja Sector 39, Kalamboli Bus Depot and Kharghar Bus Depot. Taloja accounts for 4,229 homes, followed by 257 in Kalamboli and 293 in Kharghar. Indicative prices range from around Rs 23.50 lakh in Taloja to Rs 37.70 lakh in Kalamboli and Rs 43.50 lakh in Kharghar. The figures point to a possible mismatch between what CIDCO considers affordable and what its target buyers can finance. Industry experts have noted that EWS homes priced at Rs 25 lakh or more may be difficult for households within the prescribed income ceiling, particularly after registration, stamp duty, floor-rise charges and other costs. Location may also influence demand. Taloja has seen rapid development and improved connectivity, including metro access, but buyers continue to weigh its distance from established employment centres and social infrastructure, as well as commuting costs. CIDCO maintains that its housing programme meets a genuine need in Navi Mumbai. Ashwin Mudgal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, CIDCO, said, “The overwhelming response to the housing scheme reflects the aspirations of citizens to own a home in Navi Mumbai and their continued confidence in CIDCO’s planned development initiatives. CIDCO remains committed to providing affordable and quality housing opportunities in well-planned locations, enabling citizens to benefit from the region’s growing infrastructure and connectivity.” The authority has also highlighted the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U) subsidy, under which eligible beneficiaries can receive Rs 2.5 lakh, subject to applicable guidelines and eligibility criteria. However, the repeated unsold inventory suggests that CIDCO’s challenge extends beyond construction. Pricing, apartment configurations, location, payment flexibility and connectivity may need to be reassessed before further public resources are committed.

Friends turned Foes

Hun Sen’s betrayal of the Shinawatras reignites tensions on the Thai-Cambodian border, exposing the fragility of personal diplomacy and the unfinished business of history.

It began, as it often does in Southeast Asia, with a mine and a leak. Five Thai soldiers were maimed by an explosive buried near the tangled, disputed border with Cambodia. By the following day, at least 15 civilians - mostly Thai - were dead while diplomatic ties had unravelled. Cambodia’s once-durable backchannel to Bangkok, forged through decades of Shinawatra diplomacy, lies in tatters. The proximate cause was a leaked phone call. The deeper reason lies in centuries of mistrust and the opportunism of two political dynasties playing for high stakes at home.


Relations between the two neighbours have always been uneasy. Their 800-kilometre border, carved by colonial cartographers and made murky by jungle and war, has been the site of recurrent skirmishes. The worst in recent memory came in 2008 and 2011, when artillery duels near the ancient Preah Vihear temple killed over 40 soldiers and civilians. Back then, saner heads prevailed quickly. But not this time.


The spark came in June when Hun Sen, Cambodia’s wily ex-premier and de facto regent to his son, Prime Minister Hun Manet, published a phone call between himself and Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. In the call, Paetongtarn, Thaksin Shinawatra’s daughter, called him “uncle” and disparaged one of her own military commanders. The leak ignited nationalist fury in Thailand, embarrassed the Thai armed forces, and all but doomed Paetongtarn’s premiership. She has since been suspended, and the constitutional court is weighing her dismissal.


Why would Hun Sen sabotage a relationship that once served him well? The Shinawatras and Hun Sen go way back. When Thaksin was deposed by a coup in 2006, Cambodia offered him sanctuary. When his sister Yingluck suffered a similar fate in 2014, Phnom Penh again provided a safe haven for red-shirt loyalists. The rapport between the two political clans blurred the line between diplomacy and family ties, often bypassing formal institutions altogether. In 2020, Thai dissidents in Cambodia began disappearing - abducted, it was believed, by Thai agents with at least tacit Cambodian assent. Cambodian opposition figures, too, met grim ends on Thai soil.


Now that fragile pact has crumbled. Thaksin, newly returned from exile and weakened politically, could not shield his daughter from the fallout. Thai police have since begun probing Cambodian tycoons with ties to illicit online gambling and scam networks that Cambodia’s post-pandemic economy has come to rely on. Trade between the two countries has ground to a halt. Bangkok has expelled Cambodia’s ambassador and withdrawn its own. Hun Sen, in turn, has threatened to release documents allegedly proving that Thaksin insulted Thailand’s monarchy.


This personal falling out has escalated into a geopolitical crisis. Thailand’s ruling coalition is brittle and preoccupied with an economic slowdown and looming US tariffs. Paetongtarn’s suspension is only the latest blow. Cambodia, too, faces economic headwinds. Chinese tourists remain scarce, frightened off by horror stories of forced labour in scam compounds. Both nations desperately need stability. Neither is showing the maturity to deliver it.


That responsibility once fell to ASEAN, the ten-member regional bloc founded in 1967 with the express aim of preventing conflict between Southeast Asian neighbours. But ASEAN, perennially allergic to confrontation, has yet to intervene in any meaningful way.


Yet the strangest piece of this puzzle remains Hun Sen himself. The man who long played regional peacemaker has now set fire to a personal relationship that once defined Cambodia-Thailand diplomacy. Some speculate that Thailand’s crackdown on scam centres may have ruffled powerful interests in Phnom Penh. Others believe Thaksin’s bid to legalise gambling in Thailand threatens Cambodia’s own casino-driven economy.


Perhaps the answer is simpler. Hun Sen is nothing if not a survivor. Having handed power to his son, he may be seeking to bolster his own legacy as a nationalist stalwart. Burning Thaksin - no longer a kingmaker in Thailand - may cost him little and win him domestic plaudits. A calculated betrayal has once again put Hun Sen at the centre of regional intrigue.

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