New Delhi: Home buyers have urged Prime Minister Modi to strengthen the RERA Act across the country by holding a meeting of all state governments so that the errant real estate developers can be disciplined and gullible end customers can be saved from the clutches of such builders.
Home buyers, through their association Forum for People’s Collective Efforts (FPCE), have written a letter to Modi saying that despite RERA Act, there are delays in real estate projects. “Despite RERA, most of the ongoing projects have not been completed and it has failed to stop delays in completion of real estate projects as even new projects are seeking extension from RERA authorities which is being granted to them without any difficulty. This surely points to the facts that something is amiss in its implementation and its effectiveness”, said Abhay Upadhyay, President, FPCE in the letter.
There are states like Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland Sikkim which are yet to notify their rules under the RERA Act. There are other states like Goa, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Mizoram, Telangana, Tripura and Manipur which are continuing with interim regulators, Upadhyay said.
Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim have not appointed the Regulator at all and Gujarat, Jharkhand, Manipur, Punjab, Telangana, Tripura and Uttarakhand with Interim RERA Appellate Tribunal, Upadhyay said in the letter.
Even in states where there is a RERA Authority, there is a huge issue with regard to execution of orders passed by RERA Regulators and hence the orders become “mere pieces of paper for complaints. There are not getting executed even in years’ time leading to chaos and frustration among homebuyers”, Upadhyay said.
FPCE said that many web portals set up by states are not in conformity with RERA provisions. “We can take the example of Gujarat RERA in which registered project details are not visible to public which is not serving the purpose of transparency”, Upadhyay said in the letter.
FPCE has highlighted many other malpractices prevalent in the real estate industry which is seriously affecting the home buyers. It said that there are many cases where promoters of real estate companies have taken Occupancy Certificate or Completion Certificate fraudulently by colluding with authorities and have thus forced the buyers to take possession of incomplete units.
“There are also many instances where home buyers are stuck in illegal construction. It is difficult to imagine how can in any civilized country can such illegal construction be allowed to happen at first place” Upadhyay said in the letter.
There have also been many cases where poor construction causing threat to human life have come to light. There have been fall of ceilings and plaster peeling off the walls. There has to be uniform policy in regards to quality of construction and strict punishment to promoters for substandard construction, Upadhyay said.