Sec 102 condo residents protest over pending handover, fund issues

1,400 residents of ROF Aalayas protested over increased maintenance fees and delayed handover, citing poor living conditions and defunct facilities.

Around 1,400 residents of a condominium in Sector 102 on Saturday staged a protest outside their builder’s office in Sector 44, over long pending issues related to the society’s handover, maintenance charges, among others.

Residents seen on Saturday during the protests. (HT)

THe residents of the society––ROF Aalayas––have alleged that the builder increased maintenance charges by ₹700 per flat without any prior notice. The earlier charges were ₹2,800, which were raised to ₹3,500.

They further claimed that for the past 10 months, the developer has been delaying the handover of the society, which was built in October 2019, to the residents’ welfare association (RWA).

“The builder has declined to release the interest-free maintenance security (IFMS) fund to us, which acts as a reserve corpus for the society,” said Ranjan Panda, RWA general secretary of ROF Aalayas.

“The society’s assets are also non-functional. The sewage treatment plant (STP) is defunct since the past year, and key fire safety systems, including fire alarms, water pipelines and other equipment, are not working since the last seven to eight months. This is the condition in which we are being forced to live,” he added.

“With the STP non-functional, sewage is being illegally disposed of through tankers, raising serious environmental and health concerns,” he said.

Meanwhile, Deepak Mongia, president of the RWA, said that basic maintenance services in the society have been severely affected. “There is no plumber available in the society, and even regular sweeping is not being carried out,” he said.

Alok Srivastava, senior general manager at ROF Group, said that memorandum of understanding (MoU) was executed earlier with the RWA to address key concerns of handover in a structured manner. “However, certain members of RWA appear to be driven by individual interests and have repeatedly deviated from their earlier stance,” he added. When asked for a copy of the MoU, the developers did not share it.