Probe on against 1,000 projects in Karnataka; Delhi fares poorly on RERA registration
Almost two years after the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA), 2016, was enacted, penalties have been imposed on over 1,500 project proponents in Maharashtra even as around 300 projects have been found to be on ground in the State without the regulator’s approval. In Karnataka, investigations are underway against nearly 1,000 projects.
Overall, as many as 32,306 projects and 23,111 real estate agents have been registered under the RERA across States and Union Territories. Delhi fares badly with only 14 projects and 58 property agents having been registered under the Act.
This status of RERA exists even as the Supreme Court has taken to task top real estate developers such as Unitech, Amrapali and Supertech for duping homebuyers.
With 17,353 registered projects under RERA, Maharashtra has taken the lead, followed by Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat with 3,950 and 3,300 projects registered respectively. However, the homebuyers in these States are not relieved as hundreds of projects, which are under implementation, are still not registered under the Act. And due to the complexity in laws pertaining to land, North-eastern States such as Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya have not implemented the RERA as yet, and are examining the provisions.
According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUA) officials, Maharashtra has 17,353 projects and 15,634 property agents registered. Officials said that Maharashtra has imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 on over 400 project developers while over 1,000 others have paid a penalty of Rs 1 lakh. There are several dozens projects on which Maharashtra has imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh and above. Recently, Maharashtra has sent notices to web portals like magicbricks.com, 99acres.com, makaan.com and housing.com, asking them to explain why they have not registered themselves with the Authority.
Officials said that after Maharashtra, Karnataka is the second State where investigation is pending in over 1,000 projects.
The State has registered over 2,900 projects. In 2017, it had sent notices to over 150 projects in Bengaluru for not registering the projects under the Act.
Uttar Pradesh has 3,950 projects and 1,799 agents registered. Gujarat’s RERA has 3,300 projects and 620 agents registered. Karnataka registered 1,982 projects while Madhya Pradesh has 1,901 projects registered. Chhattisgarh, Goa, Haryana, Odisha and Uttarakhand have registered 664, 254, 400, 121 and 155 projects respectively.
Of the 15 States that don’t have exclusive RERA websites yet, Delhi, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Odisha have only temporary portals. For instance, Delhi has created a webpage on RERA within the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) website. For Bihar and Odisha too, the RERA webpages are part of the respective websites of the Urban Development and Housing Departments. And even these lack information about registered projects and developers.
West Bengal has notified the Act but its website is not operational and the State has formed a committee to study the Maharashtra and Karnataka model of RERA implementation. The Act does not apply to Jammu & Kashmir.
“Many States are still in the process of notifying their RERA rules. There has been continuous fretting about the dilution of the rules recently notified by many States. In fact, there are multiple changes made by different States in the RERA proposed initially by the Central Government. Dilution in ongoing projects’ definitions has left a huge number of projects out of the RERA ambit, and this is understandably a major concern for buyers,” Anuj Puri, Chairman, ANAROCK Property Consultants, said.
The Act, which is meant to safeguard the rights of the homebuyers and provide speedy redressals, has faced significant hurdles in its own implementation, ever since its introduction on May 1, 2016. It was not before one year that all the provisions of the RERA could be brought into force on May 1, 2017. However, within no time, multiple cases, all challenging the constitutional validity of the RERA, were filed across the country. Finally, on December 6, 2017, the Bombay High Court, which was entrusted by the Supreme Court to deliver the verdict, upheld the validity of the RERA.