R. K SINHA
You will agree that howsoever low income a man has, he nurses a dream to have a roof under his head; a house of his own. To make a man realize his dream to own a house, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has taken right step in his Budget proposals for the year 2017-18.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already assured that by 2022, every Indian will have a house of his own. To fulfill the promise of Prime Minister, Jaitley has taken a step forward in this year’s Budget. He has given status of infrastructure to low cost housing schemes. This will ensure that even people Below the Poverty Line will be able to have a house.
Earlier, only a house with 30 square meter was categorized as low cost house and that too only in four metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. This has been increased in the budget proposals to 60 SQ Mtr and it will apply not only in four cosmolitan cities but to all over the country. Another significant changed brought to the limit of built up area is to change it from built up area to carpet area. It means the built area that includes pillars, foundation, walls and stairs reduced the floor or carpet area of the house. By making it 60 Sq Mtr carper area size of the low cost houses would be bigger.
Now buyers are secured
The Modi Government has initiated steps and taken decision to reform the real estate sector to end irregularities and fraud by the builders be getting the Real Estate Bill cleared by Parliament. It will create a Real Estate Regulation Authority. Under the new law, Builders would have to deposit certain amount to designated bank before starting their project. Any violation of new regulations would attract heavy penalties. This will ensure timely completion of housing projects of Builders who are found to delay their projects making the buyers to pay more. The era of looting innocent buyers is over now.
Take loan on easy term
The Government has provided Rs. 20 thousand croes for granting loans to poorer section of the society to encourage people to take housing loans on easy terms. The amount would be disbursed during the financial year 2017-18 that is it will not be carried over to next fiscal year. If one calculates a loan of Rs. 10 lakh to low income group people to buy a house would benefit 2 lakh people of the country.
Finance Minister Jaitley estimates that it would lead to good investment by domestic and foreign investors in the housing sector. Some real estate experts tell me that the Budget has given special focus to the housing sector. Bank loans for low cost housing has already been reduced. Prime Minister Modi made this announcement in his broadcast to the nation in December 2016.
Believe it, Builders who were running from pillar to post to get finance would now be able to get finance from both banking and non-banking finance companies easily.
My house is located in NOIDA. I find that many builders were cheating and looting home buyers. I have been receiving complaints from home buyers from all over the country including from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. On an average housing projects sold to buyers are running late by 20 to 30 months in Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad and NOIDA. Nephew of a friend of mine working in a leading company has paid Rs. 22 lakhs to a big builder. It is more than two years now, the project is in doldrums. Many buyers of the particular project in NOIDA have gone to court but relief is yet to come. The flat costs more than 60 lakhs.
An Chief Executive Officer of Real Estate Advisory Company recently told me that the builders work on projects with huge margin of 300 to 500 percent. A sizeable amount running into hundreds of crores are spent on publicity and advertisement.
Reforms in the housing sector would make dishonest builders vanish from the scene; many such fraudsters might even go to jail.
Well, it is a good augur for the people of the country that the Modi Government has affected reforms and taken decision for the larger benefit of the society, be it demonitisation, reforms in housing sector and crack down on black money. The critics of Prime Minister Modi notably, Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee and the Communists should better look into the hard facts of the performance chart of the government rather than harping on ‘ Where are acche din”.
(The Writer is a Member of Rajya Sabha)
