If India should be positioned within the first 50 countries in ease-of-doing-business ranking, there is a need to simplify labour laws and remove the glitches that at present exist in the Real Estate Regulatory Bill, observed Avinash Patel, the newly-elected National president of the Builders’ Association of India (BAI).
In a brief chat with this correspondent, Patel said, “The issues are very many. While theplanners have understood the importance of the construction industry and allocated over ₹65 lakh crore for development of housing infrastructure during the 12{+t}{+h} Plan period, the going has not been easy for builders.”
Listing out some of the pain points for builders in particular in the Real Estate Regulatory Bill, he said, “In the event of any change in the plan (not within the apartment, but structural changes outside, or say in relocating the sump and so on), we have to take the permission of two-third members (proposed residents). This is bound to impact the project take off and completion timing.”
Lack of coordination“A drastic change in the approval system of all real estate and infrastructure projects is the need of the hour,” he said, and cited that at present it took 18-24 months to get the clearance for a real estate project in Mumbai, as more than 65 permissions have to be got from the local government, the State and Centre before commencing work on the proposed site. “There is no coordination between these authorities and project costs escalate.”