Thursday 26 December 2013

Controlling Corruption Would Decrease Realty Prices By 20% - Part 1

Blaming the wayward administrators and flawed policies for corruption in the system, Deepak Parekh, the Chairman of one of Indian’s major mortgage lenders, Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) said digging out corruption would reduce the home prices almost by 20%.

He also said that corruption is pervasive in the sector and the process involves a wide-range of approvals and for each approvals if the builder pays, then eventually the product would be priced at higher cost, which a buyer as to tolerate.

In regard to the startling success in the general election by Aam Aadmi Party, led by an anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal who is likely to take oath as chief minister of Delhi, Parekh commented that the impetus put up for anti-corruption movement by Anna Hazare two years ago forced the Parliament to pass the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill.

While highlighting numerous occurrences of corruption, Kejriwalalso notified the link between the politics and real estate.  Parekh, criticizing the paralyzed situation of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) saidthat the system should be cleaned and also recommended the government on the problems in policies.

In regard this, it was also added that the bill to regulate the sector was introduced in Parliament by government in August.

Girija Vyas, Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA)said that the system is prevalent of corruption, which is undeniable and hence the sector is insisting for single-window clearance and online approvals.He also added that the Regulatory Bill will bring transparency and will defend the interests of all consumers and stakeholders.

Vyas also said that the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill 2013 is introduced to a House standing committee and is likely to be approved in the next session of Parliament.  Adding to this, Parekh said that the some of the loopholes in the policies need to be persevered that may help in stopping the corruption.

Vyas also discussed about the Urban Land Ceiling (ULC) Act, which is discarded, but still ULC approval is considered to build a complex.  He said, there ULC Act does to exist but still ULC Department works as the builder should get no-objection certificate (NOC).  Judges don’t want to hear ULC cases as the Act is discarded, but still land is blocked because of ULC, which exists in the courts cases even now.  And, he ended this discussion saying that broken policies should be fixed.

He also stressed on the requirement of a realty supervisory body to coordinate and balance various government bodies and to provide an organized method. Further, he said that the regulatory body should be in such a way that it should augment fear in a person even while thinking of doing anything wrong as they can be reprimanded or shunned and now-a-days no one has any fear of such kind. 

Parekh also recommended incentive programs for builders who come-up with affordable housing projects as it will motivate them to consider more projects of such kind and will also increase resource.  He also instructed the developers to pick some tactics from previous phases and decrease the profit slightly so that they can attract more buyers to the market.

Parekh also advocated to increase Floor Space Index (FSI), infrastructure development, planning new cities, and resolving defective policies to increase the housing stock resources.

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