Army Welfare Housing Organisation

Army Welfare Housing Organisation is a society formed in December 1978 under the Indian Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. The aim and objective of the Organisation is to construct houses for serving/retired Army personnel and their widows in selected stations throughout the country.^[1] Adjutant-General of the Indian Army is the ex-officio chairman of AWHO^[2] and the board of governors is entirely constituted of senior army officers.^[3] The Organisation claims to function on 'No Profit No Loss' basis but that has been disputed. Serving/Veteran allottees of some projects have dragged the organization into the Court due to non-following the directions of Authorities of the state where the project is situated, delay in handing over and inferior construction.

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AWHO conducts demand surveys to determine demand for a housing project at a certain location. Applicants are requested for Rs. 10,000/- to register into the demand survey scheme. There is no interest provided for this money. If an applicant wants to withdraw later, he gets the original amount minus 2%. Quite often demand surveys run for a long while without resulting in any actual housing project starting up. There are also several demand surveys which are discarded later citing lack of demand or inability to acquire land.^[5]