Govt set to notify ‘diluted’ RERA

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 11

The state government is all set to bring in the Haryana’s draft Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Rules (RERA) in its a ‘diluted’ form, notwithstanding Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh’s missive to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar asking him to re-examine the rules.

The Tribune has learnt that senior officials of the Town and Country Planning Department have in a meeting held on Thursday last obtained Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s approval for notifying RERA with minor modifications in the draft rules they had notified on April 29. A day earlier Union Minister for Urban Development and Housing Vankaiah Naidu had rapped the government for its failure to introduce the rules which were to come in force on May 1 across the country.

Arun Kumar Gupta, Principal Secretary, Town and Country Planning Department, confirmed that RERA is likely to be notified by June 30, but refused to divulge details. The department has received over 1,700 objections after the notification of the draft RERA rules and had invited objections up to May 15.

A majority of objections pertained to ‘dilution’ of the rules by excluding ongoing projects, which have applied for occupancy certificate or part completion certificate, projects which have received the completion or part completion certificate in case of a plotted colony etc.

It was alleged that the state government was working under influence of a strong builder lobby that had ‘fleeced’ thousands of home buyers of their hard-earned money without delivering houses in the assured time frame.

Union Minister of State for Housing Rao Inderjit Singh had taken exception to the “dilution” of RERA by the state. He had said it would deprive home buyers of the benefit of the legislation passed by Parliament for the protection of customers.

“It is a settled law that subordinate legislation, such as rules, regulations and schemes, cannot be in violation of the principal Act and any such provision in the rules will be liable to be struck down by courts,” Rao Inderjit Singh had said in his letter.

Sources, however, say that the government is unlikely to consider most of the suggestions and objections raised by Rao. “Haryana is the only state where a large number housing projects have come up in the past one decade. The RERA Act in its original form is impractical and cannot be made applicable in the state. When Naidu’s own state Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat can deviate from the original Act, why is there hue and cry about Haryana?” the sources question.