Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu defended the role of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), while speaking at the inauguration of the 28th convention of the Builders’ Association of India here on Friday.
“Real estate regulation is not for strangulation, but for regulation and promotion of the sector. Some fly-by-night operators had been misusing the customer’s confidence in them. That is why, I [when he was Union Minister], after consulting others, introduced the Real Estate Regulatory Authority,” said Mr. Naidu.
Acknowledging the sector as an important partner in India’s development narrative, he said, “The construction and real estate sector is the second largest employer in the country and is slated to grow at 13%. It is expected to attract $10 billion investment by 2020. The construction industry has received foreign direct investment of $24.54 billion between April 2000 and June 2017 and the market share of real estate sector is expected to touch $180 billion by 2020.”
He assured builders that the issues they were facing would be looked into. Mr. Naidu said he had held multiple meetings with various ministries and impressed upon them on the need for a single-window clearance for projects to ensure ease of doing business. “Delhi and Mumbai have already reduced the time taken for approval to 60 days, and I hope other States will follow the model,” he said, and added that the next step would be to have an online approval system.
On the difficulty faced by contractors, the Vice-President said NITI Aayog had initiated steps to form a committee of all stakeholders to bring out a unified standard contract document.
