It was a landmark day when the Supreme Court (SC) on July 23 decided to cancel the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) registration of the Amrapali Group and handed over the task of completing 42,000 houses to the National Building and Construction Corporation (NBCC). Although the state-owned company has accepted the assignment, homebuyers wonder if it can fulfil the promise of erring builders given its own order-books full.
The NBCC seems to be confident in executing the Amrapali projects on time. “It has agreed to accept the offer after weighing all aspects. As the SC said, the NBCC will be paid 8 per cent commission. We have been working on some of the Amrapali projects for a while. So they can be delivered. We will soon come up with the timeframe for those projects,” a senior NBCC official told this publication.
Doubts have been raised over the funding of the project. “While the effort of recovery is on by selling assets and through investigative agencies, the SC has asked homebuyers who have stopped paying EMIs, to now deposit them into the court-monitored account. This will take care of the initial funding. Also with a concrete timeline and the court-monitored procedure, private equity and other financial institutions will extend their helping hand. There will be more clarity on it with time,” the official added.
However, the industry agrees that NBCC alone cannot complete all projects. For instance the SC on Monday observed that the state-owned construction company will not take up the construction of Unitech housing projects, but will only oversee them.
The Centre had earlier urged the SC that the NBCC should be given the task of completing the unfinished construction of Unitech housing projects to ensure timely delivery of flats.
“There is a limit to the number of projects NBCC can take. It can’t simultaneously work on all stressed projects. The SC had asked the housing ministry to find out ways for completing the projects. We are working on the solution. If required we will rope in more developers who have clean record and good track record of delivering projects on time,” a senior official of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs told this publication.
NBCC alone cannot complete all projects
The Supreme Court on Monday observed that state-owned National Building and Construction Corporation will not take up the construction of Unitech housing projects, but will only oversee them so that the flats can be delivered on time