The Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation is aware of cases of swindling/cheating of the consumers by unscrupulous builders and property dealers. Therefore in order to ensure consumer protection, bring in transparency and fair and ethical business practices in real estate transactions, the Ministry has mooted a Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill. The Bill aims to establish a regulatory oversight mechanism to enforce disclosure, fair practice and accountability norms in the real estate sector, and to provide an adjudication machinery for speedy dispute redressal. However no time frame for its finalization can be assigned at this juncture. This was stated by Shri Ajay Maken, Minister of Housing & Poverty Alleviation in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on March 13, 2013.
Regarding escalation of cost of housing in the country , the Minister stated that National Housing Bank (NHB) RESIDEX which tracks the movement of residential prices in select cities, indicates that average annual increase in the price of houses during 2011 and 2012 was 12.3%(Base Year – 2007).These residential prices are market driven and based on demand and supply factors.
The Minister stated that in order to facilitate supply of affordable housing stock and ease the prices for the urban poor, Government of India is implementing the following schemes:
• Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) with its two components Basic Services to Urban Poor (BSUP) and Integrated Housing & Slum Development Programme (IHSDP)
• The Scheme of Rajiv AwasYojana (RAY)
• Affordable Housing in Partnership Scheme (AHP)
Also to increase availability of cheap credit to the urban poor to enable them to construct/purchase houses, Government of India is implementing the Interest Subsidy Scheme for Housing the Urban Poor (ISHUP), soon to be rechristened as Rajiv RinnYojana (RRY), the Minister added.
Concerning the Government proposal for stringent regulation and legislation to protect the buyers from unscrupulous builders and property dealers , the Minister stated that ‘Land’ and ‘Colonisation’ are State subjects, therefore it is the primary responsibility of State Authorities to address the cases of swindling/cheating of the buyers by unscrupulous builders and property dealers. The Real Estate projects approval/implementation is governed by respective State Town & Country Planning Acts, Development Authority Acts and other such legislations, totally within the jurisdiction of the respective State Governments.
The Minister further stated that the Real Estate transactions are governed mainly by Contract Act and remedy under Indian Penal Code (IPC), Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), Consumer Protection Act and other similar Acts are available to deal with the real estate firms and builders in case of breach of contract.
Regarding the Government proposal to make it mandatory for the private builders to construct certain percent of the flats for economically weaker sections, the Minister stated that this Ministry has advised States to reserve at least 15% of residential FAR/ FSI or 35% of dwelling units for EWS / LIG categories whichever is higher, with a system of cross-subsidization in all future housing projects.
No comments:
Post a Comment