NEED FOR NORMS

Rao suggests that the need of the hour is to bring a legislation called National Housing Projects Disclosures Act. This legislation should make it mandatory for a project developer anywhere in India developing a residential project to disclose in the prospectus all the specific details about the project. Echoing Rao’s views, Vineet Singh of 99acres.com says, “In particular, there should be disclosure norms regarding the regulatory approvals received by the real-estate projects. Launch of realty projects should be allowed only after they have received all the regulatory approvals. At present, we see many launches where even six to 12 months or more after the launch, regulatory approvals are pending. This delays construction and frustrates customers. So, unless a specific set of approvals is in place, developers should not be allowed to raise money for a project.”

ENABLING RIGHT CHOICE

For customers to be able to make the right choice, developers must disclose all the physical, legal, and technological details of their housing projects. The disclosures that must be made compulsorily should include the builder’s name, project name, landowner’s name, status of land ownership, area of land for the project, project land use description in a standard format, total built-up area, FAR (floor-area ratio) permitted and utilised, ground coverage permitted and used, and the number of floors permitted and developed. Also included must be the status of various approvals, namely, layout plan sanction, building plan sanction, electricity and water sanctions, environmental clearance, fire safety clearance, lift clearance, technical specifications of the project, compliance to National Building Code and other codes pertaining to earthquake/structural safety.

... contd.