The Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India (Credai) has written to Housing and Urban Affairs minister Hardeep Puri and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, seeking immediate intervention to curb the sudden hike of 40-50% in prices of raw materials such as cement and steel.
As per the apex industry body, the steep hike indicates cartelisation and monopolistic trade practices by cement and steel manufacturers. “We would like to bring your attention to the cartelisation by Cement and Steel manufacturers by imposing a sudden increase in their selling price. Across various States, there has been an increase of ₹100-250 per bag of cement and about ₹2,000-₹2,500 per metric tonne of steel,” Credai said in the letter dated May 8.
The letter has also been marked to Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Minister Prakash Javadekar and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
The industry body said that given the current crisis faced by the real estate sector because of COVID-19, such an abrupt increase in prices will impact developers and lead to increase in construction costs and overall project costs. “With wafer-thin margins, many developers may be constrained to stop construction work, thereby impacting delivery of projects, leading to penalties under RERA and so on. This will have a cascading effect on homebuyers also,” it said.
Further, Credai added that this abrupt increase in the prices is highly unethical and amounts to unfair and restrictive trade practices. Controlling this price rise is highly essential for the construction to be started in full swing and to get the country’s economy back on its growth path, it said.
“We shall be grateful if the issue of price rise of cement, steel, and other raw materials can be taken up by you with the relevant Ministries at the earliest,” it said.
