The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI) on Saturday urged the government to put in place mechanisms to regulate cement prices that have been going up at an alarming rate affecting the real estate developers’ business.
“The cement lobby is very very strong. It is a cartel by itself. The cement manufacturers have been resorting to frequent price hike. This has cast an adverse impact on the growth of real estate sector,” CREDAI, Karnataka Chapter, President Mr Sushil Mantri told reporters here.
A complaint lodged by CREDAI with the Competition Commission seeking action has not evoked any response so far.
The players in the cement industry keep on expanding their production capacity and about 80 per cent of the fund that is deployed into expansion is sourced from their own accruals, indicating that there was no need for resorting to borrowings, he said, seeking to drive home his point that the industry made good profits.
The centre and state governments were running away from their responsibility of providing economically weaker section (EWS) and low income group (LIG) houses and passing on the responsibility to private developers, he said. He said the government should ask the commercial space developers to provide EWS houses as well.
CREDAI, Tamil Nadu, President Mr T Chitty Babu said the housing sector development in the state is stable and has witnessed about 10 per cent growth.
CREDAI is organising the South India’s first Real Estate Development conference “SOUTHCON-2011” here on February 4-5.
Real Estate developers from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala are expected to mark their presence at the event.