Bottom Line: CREDAI President Geetmber Anand takes a moral high ground on best practices in real estate while his own company as well as the builders that he represents continue to work otherwise.
Dear Mr Anand
Had it been any other developer defaulting on payment to Noida Authority or delaying the projects, I would not have written this open letter. For me, such developers are the larger universe of the real estate in this part of the world. However, when I look at you I have more reasons to get disappointed about the future of Indian real estate. Reason: you take a very high moral ground, as a developer and as the self-styled champion of the developers’ community, and then fail to live up to that benchmark yourself.
Let me admit that the track record of your company ATS is no doubt better than many other players in competition, in a market notorious for the lack of best practices. Yet, someone like you who talks so idealistic about the need for best practices and lack of professionalism in the business is himself a defaulter in payment. Furthermore, there are issues surfacing with your projects, of late, that indicate ATS is scaling up quantitatively beyond its qualitative capacity.
The ATS default also clearly reflects imbalance in execution capability vis-à-vis scaling up the project launches. Slowdown and lack of demand in the market can not be an alibi as it clearly exposes the over-ambitious streak of the developer who has failed to define the demand in the given market. The developers’ gut feeling than the methodological market research is what is leading the developers to default today.
Furthermore, there is also clear indication of poor track record of functional professionalism at your company level. Based on my interaction with your team as a journalist, I can vouchsafe that the professionalism at the operational level within your organization is no different than many other small-time builder who has flourished in the Delhi-NCR region due to lax regulation and rampant corruption in getting the land allotted & approvals obtained.
I have seen you taking offence when a journalist is critical to the business of real estate in this part of the world. Your intolerance to criticism apart, my personal feeling is that the journalists’ hands are too tied to be honest, forget being brutal, about the real estate functioning. Otherwise more than half of the Indian builders would have been in serious trouble. Call it your advertising clout to media houses or greasing the palms of beat journalists, but that hardly conceals the reality of poor eco system and the lack of best practices on part of the builder community.
It is often interesting to see when a journalist refers you as ‘Builder’ you take no time to correct him/her and demand to be referred as ‘Developer’; as if a name change will change the perception of the collective consciousness about your fraternity.
It comes to me as a surprise that an industry voice like you often creates a collective conspiracy of silence when the developers play mischief with the home buyers’ hard earned money. Worse even, I find no media policy at your own company level. You often make the journalists wait (your office asking for time to respond) and then refuse to answer the queries, if it requires introspection. You always expect questions that excite you to take a moral high ground.
I would like to remind you Mr Anand that journalists in their collective spirit are not the official media partner of ATS or CREDAI. There are journalists in town like me who don’t mind asking questions without falling into any trap of creating a mutual appreciation club with the builders. I will continue to raise issues and ask questions, even if that makes you uncomfortable. This open letter is also a result of you preferring to just ignore a journalist who refuses to be fed by your side of story all the time.
As an old school journalist, I have never allowed any newsmaker to control the news and become de facto Editor-in-Chief and you are no different to me sir. This is just not possible and the developers have no choice but to address to the media query. Had it not been the case I suppose CREDAI Institute of Media Studies would have opened shop by now and a new breed of journalists would have come to the profession, taking dictation from the builders on what to write during the assignment.
As the National President of industry body CREDAI, isn’t it your job to inculcate professionalism in the business rather than blaming the media for poor perception and projection of India’s arguably the dirtiest business? You can not blame the mirror for showing you the dirty face. Shoot the messenger if the message is not of your liking reflects a medieval mentality.
I have a few questions to ask you today. These questions are in the public domain since you do not respond to the media queries:
Q. What action you as CREDAI President have taken against the builders defaulting on promises and timelines?
Q. Can you force the builders to compensate the homebuyers in case of delay & default?
Q. Why don’t you remove the willful defaulters from industry body?
Q. Why should anybody take a toothless CREDAI seriously that can not act against its own members, in case of default?
Q. When a builder commits suicide you give a clarion call to halt construction. Why are you silent when a home buyer commits suicide after being cheated by the builder?
At a time when the home buyers are left with no choice but to take to street, and the judiciary forcing the developers to fall in line, I don’t think Mr Anand you guys can still manage to get away by creating a collective conspiracy of silence. You got to answer to the media and the home buyers. You better speak up now!
Yours
Ravi Sinha
A journalist who refuses to be cheer leader of builders
