Leaders of Opposition in the Maharashtra legislature, Devendra Fadnavis and Pravin Darekar, on Thursday met Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das to urge him to keep the self-redevelopment scheme for housing societies where projects are being funded by State and district cooperative banks out of the purview of the commercial real estate projects.
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In a first-of-its-kind visit by Opposition leaders to an RBI Governor, Mr. Fadnavis submitted a letter of demands. It said that over 5,800 redevelopment projects in Mumbai are lying in some degree of incompleteness and residents are rendered homeless.
Informing Mr. Das about the decision taken by the Maharashtra government during his tenure as the Chief Minister, Mr. Fadnavis said, “The government had appointed the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank as the apex bank for the district central cooperative banks (DCCBs) and the cooperative credit structure in Maharashtra as the nodal agency for successful implementation of the self-redevelopment scheme in the State through DCCBs which also includes providing finance for the projects.”
The BJP leader said that certain circulars from the RBI and the NABARD are tend to go against the objective of the scheme by treating these projects as commercial real estate projects. “There is apprehension that if the self-redevelopment scheme becomes dysfunctional, cooperative housing societies will be left entirely to the mercy of builders,” he said.
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Mr. Fadnavis urged the RBI governor to keep these projects out of the purview of the commercial real estate.
“Members of cooperative housing societies are benefiting by way of getting additional carpet area and corpus due to the extra FSI benefit. This will also help boost the economy. The government will get sizeable revenue from the project as it is estimated that near about 30% to 40% of the project cost are part of the government revenue i.e. various premiums, taxes and duties etc.,” he added.