‘Single window system is the solution,’ says senior CREDAI member

Following are excerpts from an interview with DK Abhyankar, a senior most CREDAI member and one of the members of the conciliation forum.

How has Rera impacted the consumers as well as the promoters?

India's real estate sector has been marred by inordinate project delays and poor quality of construction. Implementation of Rera has brought in transparency in the sector. Rera wants to protect the interest of the homebuyer and also ensure timely delivery of projects. The act has indeed created a sense of fear in all developers who were indulging in wrong doings in some or the other way. On the other hand, it has generated a sense of confidence among the buyers. The accountability on the builders for timely delivery of projects has brought much relief to the consumers.

How have conciliation forums helped the consumers?

The conciliation forum is basically set by the Maha-Rera under section 32(g) of Rera Act with an objective to amicably resolve disputes between the allottee and the promoter. Any aggrieved allottee or a developer, can invoke the conciliation mechanism, by lodging a complaint. We work as a mediator between the allottees and the promoters to solve the problem by creating mutual consensus between both the parties. Last month, we had received 12 cases from the Maha-Rera Mumbai office. We are happy to declare that we have resolved all the 12 cases in record time where both the complainants and respondents reached a mutual consensus and decided to opt for out-of-court settlement”. Often it happens that even after the cases are resolved in our forum, either of the party in the case, goes to the Rera court. However, in our case no one from the 12 cases that we have solved, has gone to the Rera court”.

One of the reasons, that cause the delay in the project is the time taken for the clearances and approvals from the government. What do you think, is the solution? 

A single window for clearance, where all permissions required for construction can be obtained at one time is indispensable, to tackle this issue. 

Many times, CREDAI has suggested the implementation of single window to the government. For single window clearance to become a reality, the entire bureaucratic system needs accept this concept. However, the government perhaps is finding it difficult to get all agencies on board, with this concept. The developer has to take permission from 10 to 12 agencies. It is a long and tedious process to get the clearances from all these agencies.