How Does DDA's Draw Of Lots Work?

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), on January 2, 2021, launched its housing scheme for this year, with 1,354 flats on offer. The DDA plans to conduct the entire process online – from application to refund. This will help reduce the rigour involved in the process, for the common man.

Every year, thousands of buyers diligently fill the forms of the DDA for allotment of residential units across the national capital. And then they submit those forms after waiting in serpentine queues. All this wait and diligence, they think, will be worth it if they are lucky enough to make it in the draw of lots that the DDA conducts to choose the allottees of its housing units. Luck, as a matter of fact, decides whether an applicant would get a DDA flat in his name or not. 

The result of the draw is uploaded on the DDA’s website immediately after the draw and also published in all the leading newspapers the next day.

While most of us know that the DDA uses the draw-of-lots system to allot -- on highly subsidised rates — the houses that it builds, many of us may not be aware how the process actually works.

DDA's draw of lots

The DDA uses a computerised random number indicated technique for flat allotments and then processes it in three stages: randomisation of applicants and flats; picking up of lucky numbers; and the mapping of applicants and flats.

Let's take a look at each of the three stages unfolds.

Randomisation of applicants and flats

After randomising the application records and flats by appending random numbers to each one of them, the two records are sorted and printed. While the first record is called cross-reference of applicants, the other one is called the cross-reference of flats. Once it is ensured that all the papers are properly reshuffled, the judges of the draw of lots put their initials on these records.

Picking up of the lucky number

Now, the judges have to pick a lucky number for the applications and a lucky number for the flats. This is done by picking coins numbered 0 to nine kept in boxes. The number of boxes to be used for the purpose depends on the number of applications and flats. For instance, if there are 600,000 applications submitted, the number of boxes to pick up lucky applicants will be six. And, if the number of flats on sale are 4,000, four boxes will be required to pick the lucky number for flats. To decide the lucky number for applicants and the flats, one coin from the two categories is picked. The number formed by the two coins — if one coin says 2 and another says 5, the number thus formed would be 25 — is taken as a lucky number to start the mapping process. 

Mapping of applications, flats

The lucky numbers thus arrived at are now fed into a computer, which starts the mapping of applicants and flats, starting from the positions corresponding to the lucky numbers. While doing so, the system is mindful of the choices made by the applicants in their submissions.

A few important things to know are:

• The allotment of houses is first made to the differently abled applicants. 
• Reservations for each category — differently abled, scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, ex-servicemen, war widows — is made locality-wise. 
• In case of SC/ST applicants, the reservation is swappable. This means that if the number of ST applicants is less than the number of flats reserved for them, the remaining flats will be transferred to the SC quota. The same rule would apply in case of a reverse situation.