No relief for home buyers! Failure of States makes affordable housing a distant dream

States were given a year to get the regulator in place and abiding the orders only Madhya Pradesh managed to set up the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA)

By: News Desk |
April 10, 2017 3:03 pm

Center’s efforts to protects home buyers and providing them a platform to resolve disputes looks to go in vein as most of the States failed to set up real estate regulator ahead of the given deadline, April 30. The Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) Act came into force on May 1, 2016, which provides for a regulator in states to oversee transactions and settle disputes.

States were given a year to get the regulator in place and abiding the orders only Madhya Pradesh managed to set up RERA.

The Minister of State, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Rao Inderjit Singh told the Rajya Sabha on April 6, ‘only MP has set up the RERA’.

To hear buyers’ complaints, meanwhile, the States can name any officer from the housing department, as the regulator to hear buyers’ complaints till a RERA is set up.

At present, the real estate sector is majorly unregulated and courts are the only place where a buyer can take a complaint. India has 29 states and seven union territories, which are administered by the Centre.

According to the Act, builders have to register a project coming up on 500sq m or more with the regulator before they launch or even advertise their plan. The law also covers new as well as those projects where completion certificate has not been given.

However, some states and Union Territories such as Delhi, Chandigarh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, Rajasthan and Andaman & Nicobar Islands have put in place an interim regulator.

As per sources, the deadline was 20 days away not much was expected as setting up a Rera takes time.

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