NEW DELHI: With the number of criminal proceedings against developers steadily rising, accompanied by strong court rulings and increasing pressure from home buyers in the National Capital Region, the Haryana and Uttar Pradesh Real Estate Regulatory Authorities (RERA) have finally begun cracking the whip against erring builders.
Just weeks after the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on the Amrapali group, where the top court found myriad malpractices, the UP-RERA has now announced that it would review projects of over a 100 developers in Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad which have been ‘extremely delayed’. The authority will also set fresh deadlines for completion of these projects, after which it will delist them and take over the construction work.
“As many as 100 builders have defaulted in the UP-NCR region with projects having been delayed by three to six years on an average. If they do not complete the projects, we will go ahead and deregister or take over the projects,” Balwinder Kumar, member of UP-RERA bench told this paper.
There are over 21,000 apartments in residential projects undertaken by the Logix group, Today Homes, Rudra Buildwell, Omaxe and Supertech, which fall under the ‘extremely delayed’. The UP-RERA, intends to review all such projects in next 60 days.
According to sources, the directive comes after the Union Urban Development Ministry pulled up both UP RERA and Haryana RERA officials over the “soft handling” of consumer complaints. “We have been noticing an increase in number of delays and defaults by developers. While the ministry is taking note of industry woes, it has also registered the reckless attitude by some developers. Soft handling of such offenses will not work. A strong message needs to go to such developers,” a senior official in Ministry of Urban Development Ministry told TNIE.
The ministry has already advised both UP and Haryana RERA to identify stuck housing projects in Gurgaon, Noida, Greater Noida, Sohna Road, Mohali, and other locations. “We are receiving around 20 complaints on a daily basis and are trying to resolve it as soon as possible but the process takes some time,” said a member of Haryana RERA.
H-RERA has already attracted heavy criticism from home buyers, who in February this year moved a writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking judicial remedies, alleging that RERA rules were being diluted by the Haryana government in the larger interest of developers.
One of the worst examples being pointed to is the case of Supertech, where H-RERA took no strong action against the developer which allegedly cheated customers with a non-existent residential project. In the two years since RERA was implemented, barring Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, not many states have implemented it completely. In Maharashtra, RERA has been able to solve 90 per cent of problems that reach it through reconciliation processes, while the body has been proactive in slapping fines on errant developers.
However UP-RERA and H-RERA’s performance has been disappointing, say affected home-buyers. “We have three major cases in Supertech, Amrapali and Unitech. Despite a huge outcry, there was no penalty slapped by the authority. We have hope only after the cases have gone to court,” Rajiv Chaudhary, one of the aggrieved buyers in one of Amrapali’s projects told this paper.