Industry hails Cabinet nod to RERA Bill amendments

The Union Cabinet’s nod to a slew of changes in the RERA Bill on Wednesday was uniformally hailed by various stakeholders in the real estate industry on Thursday.

Sachin Sandhir, Global MD, Emerging Business, RICS, said, “It is a welcome move by the Government to amend certain aspects of the Bill which will benefit end- users greatly especially putting aside 70 per cent of the sale proceeds in an escrow account to meet construction cost. If effectively monitored, this will lead to faster execution and delivery of the projects which is a critical challenge in the real estate sector in India. ”However, he said, “Despite being a huge positive step in right direction, it would have been even better if Government bodies, state and Central, would have been included in the purview of the real estate regulation as many times there are approval delays from their side which greatly impacts the project delivery.”

Commenting on the development, Vineet Relia, Managing Director, SARE Homes, said, “The sector is currently going through a wait-and-watch phase. This was a long-awaited measure that appears to benefit both the developers and consumers because of the regulatory uniformity element.” This move, he said, was a good push to bring back the consumer confidence and encourage transparency. However, he said a few issues needed to be addressed in order to ensure an upward growth trend in the sector. “Introducing a mechanism above the existing set of authorities who would grant approvals and clearances poses a serious question on the viability of a single-window clearance system. Also, this being imposed on a retrospective basis is like changing the rules of the game past half-time,” he added.

In his response, RK Arora, Chairman of Supertech Limited, said the regulatory Bill by the Cabinet should also engage approving authorities so that the real estate project don’t get delayed on getting approvals and timely deliveries can be given to the customers. This move, he said, “will enable a boost in the realty sector as well as help increase investment figures in the industry. The approving authorities will help in sharing the desired timeframe to sanction and completion of the projects in a timely manner.”

Yash Gupta, Country Head and Senior MD, Hines India Real Estate, said, “The Cabinet nod to the Real Estate Regulatory Bill is a welcome initiative and will bring in transparency, boost customer confidence and attract higher foreign investments in the sector. Going forward we expect that these amendments would help developers execute and deliver projects on time.”

According to Anil Kumar Sharma, CMD, Amrapali Group, “At initial level it seems good although it could have been more effective if all stakeholders like, approving authorities, financial institutions, structural and architectural consultants and contractors were brought in the ambit of this Bill as this would help in regulating the approval process and appropriate delivery time of any project.”

Amit K Lalit, CEO of real estate wealth management firm Valion PREFO, said, “It is a great initiative to keep a significant portion of sale proceeds in escrow as that would ensure timely execution of projects and hold temptations of developers to use customer funds for alternate investments.  It would also promote fair play in real estate and encourage investments in the sector.”

Aman Nagar, Director-Paras Buildtech said, “All these consumer friendly amendments will definitely bring in revolutionary changes in real estate development process and I hope the developers will also get support from the desired regulatory authorities and committees in clearance and approvals of different projects on time for speedy project developments. In Paras, we always try to keep our promises be it in delivering projects on time, or maintaining transparency with the customers or fulfilling any other commitments made to them.”

Ankur Jindal, COO- Sales, SVP Group, said, “It is a great initiative to keep a significant portion of sale proceeds in escrow as that would ensure timely execution of projects and hold temptations of developers to use customer funds for alternate investments. It would also promote fair play in real estate and encourage investments in the sector. Investments in the sector would drive growth to a sector which is straddled with huge developer debts and high cost of capital. The single-window clearance is the major feature that will help in cutting down approvals, which runs into 20-30s, and finally may see developers delivering projects on time. Grading of developers would also help in instilling healthy competition and would give customer a transparent mechanism to evaluate an investment.”

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