Draft audit report of Greater Noida builders ready

There are 203 realty projects in Greater Noida and around 80 are in a critical state, thereby affecting thousands of homebuyers who failed to get flats on time.

The Greater Noida authority chief executive officer Debasish Panda on Tuesday was given a presentation by Currie & Brown, an international auditing agency, about the audit report of eight builders.

The Greater Noida authority had asked Currie & Brown to audit accounts of 25 builders in the first phase. (Sunil Ghosh/HT Photo)

In November 2017, the authority had hired Currie & Brown to audit accounts of errant builders to see if they had diverted funds collected from homebuyers.

“Today, Currie & Brown gave a presentation regarding eight builders, whose accounts have been audited. As of now, the agency has given a draft of the audit report. The final report is yet to be submitted by the agency,” Panda said.

However, he refused to share the details of the draft report on the eight builders.

There are 203 realty projects in Greater Noida and around 80 are in a critical state, thereby affecting thousands of homebuyers who failed to get flats on time.

On September 12, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had directed the chief executive officers of Greater Noida authority to audit builders who have failed to deliver flats to homebuyers.

The directive came after homebuyers demanded an audit of builders from whom they had purchased flats. Many of these flats could not be handed over because the funds collected against flats were allegedly diverted to other projects.

The Greater Noida authority then asked Currie & Brown to audit accounts of 25 builders in the first phase. There are 36,000 flats in these 25 projects that are stuck due to a financial crisis.

The audit is being conducted on 11 points — the builders’ current financial capacity, funds collected from buyers, land bank and money spent on construction and other purposes, among others.

“It will take a while longer for Currie & Brown to complete the audit of all builders and submit a report for further action. I do not know when it will finish the job, but I hope it is done soon,” Panda said.

In the first phase, the agency would cover only 25 housing projects. Later, it will identify other builders whose accounts, too, have to be audited.