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NEW DELHI: In a bid to help potential homebuyers to take informed decisions amid numerous instances of projects getting delayed even after the enactment of real estate regulation law, RERA, housing and urban affairs ministry on Thursday announced creating a nation-wide database of real estate projects through its newly launched unified portal for the sector.People would be able to get details of projects by different builders across the country and their status when the database is ready, sources said. The unified portal was launched by housing and urban affairs minister Manohar Lal Khattar at the RERA Central Advisory Council (CAC) meeting. The meeting happened barely weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled up RERAs and state govt officials for failing to address grievances of homebuyers and concerns of builders as well.Sources said homebuyers representatives in the meeting opposed the Maharashtra govt’s move to have a separate RERA-like law for redevelopment projects under the Maharashtra Housing Policy 2025. Abhay Upadhyay of Forum For People’s Collective Efforts (FPCE) sought immediate action by the Centre to stop this as it “undermines RERA’s uniform framework and creates jurisdictional confusion” and that such a provision will give a handle to builders to do ‘forum shopping’. Upadhyay also submitted that builders may prefer state law over RERA registration and it may open Pandora’s box for other states to create separate laws. It can be recalled that the FPCE had challenged a similar law enacted by West Bengal and the Supreme Court declared this as ultra vires.Sources said that representatives from legal departments also did not favour such a law as RERA being a central legislation remains supreme.In an official statement, the housing ministry said that the council suggested the need to take suitable measures to ensure effective implementation of RERA orders and to curb misleading advertisements. “The Council emphasised steps to be taken to bring about uniformity in RERA implementation, faster registration, compliance of orders, and clarity in definitions… The Council recommended that considering the eight years of journey of RERA, there is need to focus on next generation reforms in RERA. A detailed exercise may be conducted by the ministry to work out the necessary measures to further strengthen RERA,” it added.
