Naredco asks Govt to give ‘industry status’ to realty

The National Real Estate Development Council (Naredco), an apex body of real estate stakeholders, on Wednesday asked the Government to grant industry status to the real estate sector to enable it to recover from severe slowdown.

Industry status will attract large companies and most importantly inculcate “corporate culture” and “industry discipline” which will immensely benefit economy in general and consumers in particular, said Naredco President Parveen Jain in a pre-Budget memorandum to the Government.

Jain said most industry rules and regulations are applicable to real estate sector also and denial of industry status for funding purposes to the sector will further worsen the existing financial crunch and slowdown in demand because of erosion of capital and loss of confidence of investors and buyers.

Naredco has also demanded “infrastructure status” to the housing sector, a long-standing demand of the real estate developers, by adding a clause to the definition of “infrastructure facility” u/s 80IA of IT Act 1961.

Jain also demanded creation of Special Residential Zones (SRZs) for affordable housing on the lines of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) where special concessions and incentives are in built together with single window clearances. This will help increase supply of affordable housing on a large scale, he said.