CAC inquired the sub-committee to instil West Bengal in taking up RERA It’s been over a year now the central government mandated the Real Estate Regulation.

CAC inquired the sub-committee to instil West Bengal in taking up RERA

It’s been over a year now the central government mandated the Real Estate Regulation & Development Act, 2016 (RERA) all across the country. Where most of the states and UTS acted on the centre’s guideline, West Bengal and a few other states have hit the skids.

Now the members of the Central Advisory Council constituted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs under the Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) finally spelt out to notify the sub-committee in bringing around West Bengal Government adopting RERA.

The sub-committee was formed by the government and the Central Advisory Council with the aim of ensuring West Bengal government to adopt RERA in the first place than that of the other states.

Home buyers' pan India body Forum for People's Collective Efforts (FPCE), Gurugram's Federation of Apartment Owners Association (FAOA), Namma Bengaluru Foundation — individuals from CAC — have lettered the Minister of Housing, Hardeep Singh Puri, looking for notification of the sub-committee as the most punctual.

The letter said, “We are extremely concerned about RERA being rendered redundant if the state of West Bengal is successful in implementing WBHIRA in place of RERA, since it may prompt other states to follow suit.”

Previously, during July, FPCE had asked for the PM and the President’s intervention in the oppression of West Bengal government in bypassing the centre’s RERA act and constituting a separate state-level version (Housing & Industrial Regulation Act, 2017) of the Act of their own.

Under RERA, force majeure provision can be conjured just if there should arise an occurrence of war, dry spell, surges, seismic tremor, fire or some other common catastrophe affecting the regular development of real estate projects and land ventures. Nonetheless, as per HIRA, far beyond the conditions recorded under RERA, compel majeure provision can be pronounced for some other situation endorsed.

RERA has characterized garage as a place inside a venture that has a rooftop and dividers on three sides for parking any vehicle, however, it does exclude unenclosed or open parking area. HIRA, then again, says a parking space means such a zone as might be endorsed and garage as authorized by the competent authority.

“FPCE is putting all their efforts together in implementing RERA all across the country uniformly. In accordance with which states and UTs should also stay in line. Coming to the WB HIRA the Act jars with the prime Act in terms of majeure and garage clause which seems to deride the spirit of the Act, at some point. However, real estate agents' duties, responsibilities and penalties are same in WBHIRA & RERA. Moreover, implementation of RERA or WBHIRA will be in question until all Housing finance companies stop the disbursements in unregistered projects and in the same manner if regulator instructs all registry offices to get property registered only in the registered projects only as per the provisions of the said Act and rules/regulations made thereunder. All local medias in West Bengal is still silent on these issues whereby general consumers are not well aware of their rights under the said Act. Only media's conscious efforts in consonance with state/central government can bring back the basic essence of this Law" said Mr Mahesh Somani, Chairman - National RERA Committee, National Association of Realtors ( NAR ) India and Vice President of RECA Kolkata. NAR India is one of the Central Advisory Council member constituted under the Central Housing Ministry.

“More than everything, this tug-of-war between the state and the central government has been consistently harping on the investment sentiment in the housing sector of the state. The real estate sale is at a stake of late which is kind of alarming for the revenue generation for both the sector and the state in amalgam,” worried Somani added.