Draft Real Estate Regulation and Development Bill, 2011 – Coming Soon

The government will make public the draft Real Estate Regulation and Development Bill, 2011 for comments from stakeholders this week and may subsequently introduce it in the forthcoming winter session of Parliament. Aimed at protecting customers from fly-by-night developers, the draft Bill will seek to bring more transparency in the realty sector.

“We will upload the draft Bill on the Ministry’s website on November 11 for suggestions by public. After considering those suggestions, we are hopeful of introducing the bill during the winter session of Parliament,”Union Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja said. While unveiling the new logo and brand identity of Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI), she said the draft Bill has taken into account of the concerns raised by the builder community. 

“The bill will be under the public domain for few days… We are also prepared to look into the suggestion of single window clearance system for realty projects wherever we can,” Selja said. Last week, she had said the Bill would protect the interest of consumers without hurting the real estate sector. “It will be a balanced kind of Bill, as on one hand we do not want consumers should be put into any difficulty (in real estate buying) and on the other hand, we definitely do not want to throttle the real estate industry. So it will be a balanced (one),” the minister had said. 

Real estate developers led by CREDAI has been opposing the constitution of a regulatory body to supervise sector and said that it would become a “breeding ground for corruption” when implemented. They apprehended that the objective of the draft Bill was limited to just consumer protection, leaving other important issues such as long delay in approval and rising cost of material.

According to the draft, developers will need to make public disclosures related to land title, project completion date and other relevant scheme details on the website of the proposed regulatory authority. The disclosures must be made before launching a project, so that consumers are not taken for a ride at a later stage and the promoters will also have to register themselves with the regulatory authority.