Rehabilitation of stalled project will be the UP RERA focus in 2021

As its infrastructure was well in place, the Uttar Pradesh Real Estate Development Authority (UP RERA) was able to carry out its adjudicative work unhindered during the lockdown, and that’s a matter of great satisfaction for its Chairman Rajive Kumar. In a brief conversation with Realty & More Editor Palash Roy, Kumar said rehabilitation of stalled projects will be among the focus areas of the Authority in the New Year 2021.

• It (the year 2020) was a challenge for the buyers, it was a challenge for the builders and it was also a challenge for all the RERAs in the country. Luckily, we had started with E Courts in February, so our infrastructure was all in place.
• As far as the adjudicative role of RERA is concerned, that continued and it’s a matter of great satisfaction that our team did a tremendous work by rotation and by taking additional responsibilities.
• Noida and Greater Noida in the NCR region, which have been major areas of concern for everybody in the real estate, have shown excellent sales during the last couple of months.
• The conciliation forum was also working during the lockdown though the experience has been that it’s much more efficient to have a face-to-face meeting in conciliation rather than online, but the forum has been functional.

The following is the text of the conversation:

Palash Roy: What have been the achievements of UP RERA in 2020?

Rajive Kumar: The year 2020 has been a very unusual year and very unprecedented set of events started early on in the year. So it was a challenge for everybody. It was a challenge for the buyers, it was a challenge for the builders and it was also a challenge for all the RERAs in the country. Luckily, we had started with E Courts in February, so our infrastructure was all in place.

As far as our activities are concerned, we have been able to continue all our court hearings online from May 18, after the lockdown, and we continued thereafter as well. So as far as the adjudicative role of RERA is concerned, that continued and it’s a matter of great satisfaction that our team did a tremendous work by rotation and by taking additional responsibilities. They ensured that the system is up and about 24×7. And that was a great thing! As a result, our performance in terms of cases and their disposal and other activities has been as normal as possible and we have been able to dispose of more cases during this period.

Additionally, we had started a couple of initiatives earlier which are being carried forward in the New Year also. We propose to continue following up on the orders which had been passed earlier. In some extreme cases, we would be taking action under Section 63 of the RERA Act, which is imposing penalty for non-compliance and we expect that things now onwards are going to turn around.

Noida and Greater Noida in the NCR region, which have been major areas of concern for everybody in the real estate, have shown excellent sales during the last couple of months. The mortgage rates are very low and people have a lot of pent-up demand for houses. So I am very hopeful that as and when these houses get completed, one by one, block by block, we will see that the existing inventories are liquidated and this year the area will see an upswing.

PR: Was the conciliation forum working during the lockdown?

RK: Yes! The conciliation forum was also working during the lockdown though the experience has been that it’s much more efficient to have a face-to-face meeting in conciliation rather than online, but the forum has been functional.

PR: What initiatives have you planned for the year 2021?

RK: I think in 2021 we would be more in the consolidation phase because as far as the foundation is concerned that work has been more or less completed. So now this is the phase where, as I had mentioned, we have to follow-up on both wherever possible: the rehabilitation of projects and doing them in a cooperative mode. We have seen that a lot of enlightened association of allotees are coming forward along with the promoters to complete the projects which have been stalled. We have had some early successes in this model and we expect this model to be taken up in larger numbers in the year 2021. So that’s going to be the focus along with consolidation and follow-up of others.