CHENNAI: The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, set to get Parliament's assent soon, has been dubbed by builders as a unidirectional legislation aimed at strangulating the developer community.
The bill, in its present form, aims at safeguarding the interests of consumers and taxing developers, said Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India secretary T Chitty Babu, at a seminar organized by the Builders' Association of India ( BAI) here on Tuesday.
Listing out lacunae in the bill, Babu said other stakeholders like government agencies, regulatory bodies, financial institutions and banks had been left out of the purview of the bill.
He said a developer had to obtain nearly 50 clearances to complete a project. Often, residential projects were delayed due to obtaining plan approval from regulatory bodies and getting service connections like water, power and sewerage, he said. If banks were not brought under the bill's purview, they would withdraw funding for projects when the market became sluggish.
Babu doubted the effect the bill would have the real estate sector when land is a state subject and wondered if there was any guarantee that all states would follow the Central legislation.
Another drawback, he said, was that the bill sought to cover only projects that were 4,000 sq m and above. Since a lion's share of development projects was on a small scale, the bill would cover a very small section of builders, he noted.
He, however, welcomed the provisions to create transparency in apartment sales by making in mandatory for builders to specify carpet area and common area. Similarly, the condition that only approved projects could be marketed would put curbs on unauthorized buildings, he said.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Builders-seek-changes-in-proposed-bill/articleshow/12076895.cms
