Coming, a watchdog for real-estate deals

The Centre plans to appoint a real-estate regulator in Delhi to make developers accountable to buyers.

Updated on: Jul 6, 2011, 12:15:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Centre is planning to bring Delhi’s booming real-estate sector under a powerful watchdog. The appointment of the real-estate regulator will act as a check on haphazard development, and make developers accountable to buyers.

On Wednesday, Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy said, “Our ministry is preparing a draft bill for Delhi. The regulator will ensure justice for the buyers.” But the minister was non-committal about when the proposed law will be introduced in Parliament.

Ministry officials said the new law would cover all stakeholders.

Under it, a mechanism will be set up to ensure that buyers get their apartments in time and builders deliver the quality promised. An official said there would be a provision enabling a buyer to get compensation from the builder if certain conditions were not met.

The regulator will ensure that apartment complexes have adequate basic facilities like playgrounds, parking space and proper supply systems and will set basic standards for all builders. Violation will invite punitive action.

The Centre also wants all states to have their own real-estate regulators. Reddy asked states to bring in a similar law. He said, “Land is a state subject. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the states to ensure that realtors provide basic facilities to buyers.”

Some states have already sought a copy of the final draft bill from the ministry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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