State agencies should be held responsible for delaying approvals to realty projets: VP

Urban local bodies and state development authorities should be made responsible for any delay in giving approvals to real estate projects, just as developers are held accountable for not completing houses on time under the new realty law RERA, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said Thursday.

Addressing a real estate conference organised by CREDAI here, he asked developers to evolve an internal self-regulation mechanism and improve their image that has taken a hit due to wrongdoings of certain players.

"Delivery of project on time is important. Approval by government and municipal agency is equally important. They also have responsibility. When you want to make real estate companies accountable for delay, you also make local bodies responsible for the delays," Naidu said.

Stressing on the need for ease of doing business, he said the central and state authorities should facilitate steady growth of the real estate sector.

Naidu also favoured online approvals for realty projects and asked builders to go for digital transactions.

Real estate developers have been demanding for a long time that development authorities should also be brought under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA), which is being implemented from May 2017.

Naidu said the real estate sector is showing signs of revival with implementation of the RERA and GST. However, he expressed concern over high land prices that make projects unviable.

Highlighting the importance of the property market, he said: "Real estate sector is an important sector of our economy that contributes 7.9 per cent to the GDP of the country. Being the second largest job provider in the economy after agriculture, the entire country has stake in the real estate sector."