All states must notify rules related to RERA by July 30

New Delhi: Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today said his ministry has asked all states to put in place regulatory mechanism related to the Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act (RERA) by July 30.

"I have been constantly following with chief ministers. I wrote two letters. Today my third and final letter is going reminding the need to fulfil this obligation which is there," he said at an event organised by National Housing Bank (NHB) here.

All the states have to approve the regulation, notify the rules, appoint regulators and operate regulatory authorities also by July 30, he said. All states have been sensitised to implement the spirit of the legislation passed by Parliament last year, he said.

"I am happy that majority of the states have done it, remaining states will join in the coming days," he said. Allaying fears related to the RERA, Naidu said, the regulations will not only help real estate developers but it will enhance credibility and increase acceptability.

"It is regulation not strangulation...it will just monitor that whatever builders have promised have been delivered," he said.

The RERA promises to bring in the much-desired transparency, accountability and efficiency in the real estate sector and the government has described the implementation of the Act as the beginning of an era where consumer is the king, he said.

The government has brought in the legislation to protect home buyers and encourage genuine private players, he added. He also launched revamped RESIDEX, housing price index (HPI). Earlier, it covered 26 cities with base year 2007 and published till March, 2015 on quarterly basis.

Now, NHB RESIDEX has been transformed to provide cluster of indices covering 50 cities. As per lenders' valuation data (HPI @ Assessment Prices), out of 50 cities covered for the quarter ended March, 2017, the upward movements in prices of residential properties were seen in 27 cities over the previous quarter ended December, 2016.

Maximum increase was observed in 10 cities viz. Bhubaneshwar (11.7 per cent) followed by Vishakhapatnam (10.9 per cent), Raipur (10 per cent), Kanpur (8.1 per cent), Gurgaon (6.7 per cent), Chandigarh (6.2 per cent), Coimbatore (4.9 per cent), Mumbai (3.7 per cent) and Vadodara (3.7 per cent).

However, 19 cities have shown decline in prices over the previous quarter with maximum fall observed in Ranchi (13 per cent) followed by Gandhinagar (12 per cent), Surat (8.9 per cent), Ludhiana (7.8 per cent), and Kolkata (7.2 per cent).