The much-awaited regulatory Bill for the real estate sector will not be tabled during the current session of Parliament, a senior official in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has confirmed to Track2Realty. The draft Real Estate Regulation Bill is still in the consultative process and the government is apprehensive that the states may block it the NCTC way.
The Finance Ministry is building safeguards to ensure realty companies do not misuse the external commercial borrowing (ECB) window announced in the Budget by diverting the money.
Atul Modak: Why did bankers’ lobby not block the mutual funds then?
Pranay Vakil: Because the mutual funds lobby is larger than the bankers’ lobby. They could not do anything about it. The companies into mutual funds are so large, they might just foray into banking.
Call it the fallout of Competition Commission of India (CCI) penalty on the biggest real estate company DLF in a Gurgaon case last August, there has been a rush of complaints at the CCI against several property majors since then. According to CCI officials at least 200 complaint letters came to them against real estate players, of them around 15 were official cases.
Sunil Dahiya: Pranay, the most important thing is the background of the investor from the developer’s perspective. My understanding may be a little limited because I come form the Delhi NCR market and as you know, it is a very localized subject. But being in the governing council of NAREDCO at the national level, where Knight Frank is knowledge partner, one of the presentations that we had in 2008 with the idea that where the industry has lost its bearing and funding was the main agenda.
Industry body NAREDCO admits that a lot is needed by the Finance Minister rather than just the tax exemption, which again was needed keeping in view the housing shortage which is one of the biggest challenge for the government of the day.
It seems the euphoria within the realty sector over the proposed income tax exemption limit on housing loans from Rs. 1.5 lakhs to 3 lakhs has faded even before the union Budget 2012-13 is formally presented.
Come budget and the real estate sector, like any other industry, comes out with its own wish list. Unfortunately, while other organised industry get a patient hearing through their industry bodies, the Finance minister seem to be hardly entertaining the sector representatives till recently.
A recent industry report shows that FDI in 2010-11 was the lowest in the last four years. According to the FICCI-Ernst & Young real estate report, the FDI in the sector declined to 6 per cent of the total direct investment coming to India in 2010-11.
Real estate developers have sought inclusion of “force majeure” provisions in the proposed real estate bill drafted by the Central Government.