RERA becomes functional in Bengal, 18 months after SC order: Top official

The West Bengal Real Estate Regulatory Authority (WBRERA) is finally up and running, nearly 18 months after the Supreme Court struck down the state's own regulations introduced as a substitute for the central law, a senior official said.

In May last year, the top court had declared the West Bengal Housing Industry Regulatory Act (WBHIRA) as unconstitutional.

"The WBRERA is now in place and we have very recently commenced functioning. Until the IT backbone is ready, consumers will be able to file complaints against builders, agents and others physically. The website is expected to be operational within a fortnight," Sandipan Mukherjee, who assumed charge as WBRERA chairman, told PTI.

West Bengal was perhaps the only state where the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, passed by Parliament, had not become functional.

The WBRERA is headed by Mukherjee, an ex-Indian Forest Service officer, and consists of two other members -- B N Das (former power department official) and Tapas Mukhopadhyay (former PWD chief engineer).

Mukherjee urged homebuyers not to deal with properties that are not registered with WBRERA.

All projects, their promoters and agents have to be mandatorily registered with the regulator. It has powers to book the promoters and levy penalties, but does not have policing capabilities, he explained.

Homebuyers' association FPCE had recently urged the West Bengal government to make the real estate law RERA functional in the state at the earliest to protect the consumers' interest.

The Supreme Court's ruling had come on a plea filed by the Forum For People's Collective Efforts (FPCE), an umbrella body of homebuyers. The FPCE has played an important role in the enactment and implementation of RERA.

FPCE president Abhay Upadhyay appealed to the state government to take steps to ensure a fully functional RERA to safeguard the homebuyers' interest and bring transparency as well as accountability in the sector.