Karnataka second in Real Estate Regulation Act implementation

BENGALURU: Karnataka figures among the top performers in a nation-wide study on the implementation of the Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA) across States.A joint report on ‘RERA: How are you gearing up for compliance’ by the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Grant Thornton released last week has given Karnataka second place in the country, next only to Maharashtra in terms of registration of projects. Data available up to January 20, 2018, have been taken for consideration in the report.

Karnataka has over 1,900 real estate projects registered and over 100 complaints filed, it points out. Maharashtra is the forerunner with over 12,000 projects registered and over 350 complaints filed.The state is a towering leader in South India with Tamil Nadu a far second with over 270 projects registered and 100 complaints filed, statistics reveal. In the case of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Puducherry, an interim regulator has been appointed and their RERA portals have been launched. Telengana is yet to launch its portal, the report points out.

As part of the report, a survey was also conducted among real estate developers to assess their compliance mechanism through five questions. It reveals that 45 per cent of the developers have no formal process in place to manage the compliance mechanism while 44 per cent have incorporated some modifications in their Management Information System.

To comply with deadline for completion of projects made mandatory under the Act, 56 per cent felt the need for improving skill sets of staff while 37 per cent felt that project management needs to be outsourced to a third party. To improve customer experience post RERA, 78 per cent have created awareness and trained staff, the report says. Forty one percent of those surveyed also said that major changes have been effected in customer and vendor agreements post RERA. The report though did not specify the exact number of developers interviewed for the study.

In his foreword to the report, Neeraj Sharma, Director, Grant Thornton Advisory Private Limited said, “The survey has pointed out some very interesting perspective on how developers are gearing up for this big change and making appropriate changes to their systems.”

FICCI Chairman Real Estate Committee Navin Raheja said, “The report, a first of its kind, makes a holistic assessment on RERA compliances and how real estate developers are effectively able to embrace this change. Maintaining regulatory compliances with transparency is very important for developers in light of the introduction of RERA.”