Urgent need for regulating the building construction industry in India Today there are umpteen number of builders in various cities who are luring the prospective buyers of flats by placing very attractive full page advertisements in leading Newspapers followed by very attractive coloured broachers promising all sorts of facilities but giving no information whatsoever regarding various clearances required from statutory and other authorities for construction and subsequent handing over of the flats. Gullible buyers invest their life time savings in booking these apartments and many of them ultimately discover that they have been cheated squarely by unscrupulous builders. The ordinary law of the land is neither able to curb their unscrupulous activities at the time of initial offering nor is able to provide any effective remedy to buyers later on when they discover they have been cheated. These unscrupulous builders are hand in glove with the authorities that be and the politicians. With this huge clout, coupled with weak laws and ever increasing demand for apartments, they are able to hoodwink their customers quite easily. In view of the above, there is a very urgent need to enact a stringent law for regulating building construction industry in the country perhaps on the lines of SEBI or any other suitable model. In the meantime, as an interim measure, the government must force these builders to declare in their advertisements and broachers details of the various clearances required and the authorities responsible for issuing such clearances right from the stage of acquiring the plot till the eventual handing over of apartments and their registration in the name of the buyers. They should be compelled to print copies of the title deeds of plots and the copies of the clearances obtained up to the time of initial offerings in their sale broachers. They should also disclose the authorities responsible for issuing the remaining clearances and the stage at which they propose to obtain the same. The remaining clearances should be only those that cannot be obtained at the time of initial offering and a declaration to that effect must be made in the broacher together with the reasons. Any wrong/misstatement or suppression of any material information by the builder should be made a cognizable offence to be treated at least at par with the breach of trust and cheating. If any other stricter law could be invoked in the case there should be no hesitation in invoking the same. This issue has assumed urgency in view of a news which has just now appeared on ABP News. It has been alleged by the protesting buyers of flats, in a project in Moti Nagar Area of New Delhi by a very reputed builder, that the flats which were promised to be delivered in 2012 have not been handed over so far. They have further alleged that they have already paid 95% of the cost of flats to the builder long back (many by selling their old houses and now forced to live in rented houses) and the builder has thus collected over 500 crores while they see no hope of getting the flats in near future. Perhaps the builder is getting scot free due to his clout with the authorities that be, coupled with the weak laws and practically no regulation of this sector. This is not an isolated case but generally such is the situation with most of the builders and thus there is a crying need for regulation in this sector.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 12:58:37 +0000
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