Recent policy announcements are temporary relief, more needed, say developers, experts

Gestation period or complete cycle of a real estate project is minimum of 2 to 5 years for a project from planning to finish, says Deepak Kapoor, Director, Gulshan Homz.

Speaking at the third Webinar of Realty Webseries, a Realty & More and ICCPL initiative, Kapoor said that while taking policy decisions, the Government has to think for a minimum level 5 years to provide the impetus, so that the continuity in the provisions remains there.

Toeing the similar line Prashant Thakur, Director & Head of Research, ANAROCK Group said Government measures like no IBC initiation for an year are a temporary relief by which developer can look at ways and means to look beyond the immediate crisis and that the absence of these moves would have resulted into developers’ energies and resources getting wasted in trying to avoid somebody taking him to IBC court.

“We need to have a long period of announcement that gives a long highway to think and plan for the developer for the entire stakeholders”, said Thakur.

Another panellist at the event, Vikas Wadhawan, Group CFO, Housing.com, Makaan.com, PropTiger.com too expressed similar opinion on the matter. Wadhawan said infusion of liquidity, extension of completion date of projects, no IBC invocation for an year are all reliefs from a developer’s perspective. “These will help the developers to focus on the completion of the projects. But I think the confidence booster from the consumer side is still missing”, said Wadhawan.

Speaking at the Realty Webseries, another prominent NCR based developer Praveen Jain, CMD, Tulip Group said construction work has been severely impacted due to the lockdown. Jain said assuming that even if things are normal by Diwali, the real construction work would be delayed by an year.