Govt must ease approval process for realty projects: Godrej

Says real estate permissions have become very complicated in India. The Centre should work on improving the ease of starting in new real estate projects

Although the ease of doing business has improved in the past two years of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, more work needs to be done especially in the real estate sector that has “complicated” approval process, according to leading industrialist Adi Godrej.

The $4.1-billion Godrej Group has a large presence in the real estate sector through its firm Godrej Properties, besides in a variety of other sectors, including fast-moving consumer goods, consumer durables and agri-products.

“Real estate permissions have become very complicated in our country. (As permissions are) given by the state governments, the Centre should work on improving the ease of starting in new real estate projects,” Godrej told PTI in an interview.

According to the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India, realtors’ apex body, it takes at least 18 months to get various approvals for starting a real estate project.

While commending the government for taking up a slew of measures to improve ease of doing business, he, however, said: “They have said that they would not levy retrospective taxes, clarified many things in many ministries. One of the things on which they may have to do is ease of doing business in real estate permissions.”

Rating the performance of the Modi government as “by and large good”, Godrej said: “The only thing which remains to be delivered on the major reforms is GST (goods and services tax).”

He hoped that it would be passed in the monsoon session and likely be implemented by April1, 2017.