Maharashtra housing societies, draft rules, interest rate cut, redevelopment loans, virtual AGMs, provisional members, sinking fund, maintenance charges, cooperative governance, Mumbai Metropolitan RegionBody Text:The Maharashtra government has released draft regulations that aim to simplify cooperative-housing governance while reducing members’ costs and limiting official intervention.Key proposals include cutting the annual interest on overdue member payments from twenty-one per cent to twelve per cent and permitting societies to borrow up to ten times the land value to finance self-redevelopment.Annual general meetings could be attended either in person or virtually, provided at least two-thirds of members—or twenty people, whichever is lower—are present. If a meeting lacks a quorum, it may reconvene within seven to thirty days without one. Resolutions would require the support of fifty-one per cent of the entire membership, including online participants, and video recording would be mandatory for any redevelopment-related meeting.With roughly 0.13 million societies housing more than twenty million members—around seventy per cent of them in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region—the rules also recognise ‘premises societies’ so that shops and other commercial units secure their rightful share in redevelopment projects. A new ‘provisional member’ category would grant nominees voting rights after a member’s death until full transfer is completed. Societies could record heirs’ nominations, though title transfer would still follow the standard procedure.Common service charges must be split equally among flats, while water charges would depend on the number of taps. Sinking-fund contributions must equal at least 0.25 per cent of construction cost, and repair and maintenance funds must equal 0.75 per cent, collected annually.Deputy registrar Kiran Sonawane, who helped draft the rules, said final revisions based on fewer than one hundred public submissions will be completed within eight days before legal vetting. By elevating items previously found only in model by-laws to formal rules, the government hopes to remove ambiguity and reduce the need for registrar intervention, which often leads to costly administrators being appointed.Allowing loans worth ten times the land cost, officials added, will empower societies to pursue self-redevelopment or negotiate better terms with private builders.