Uttar Pradesh property: Yogi Adityanath government yet to notify RERA rules

The deadline for rolling out the Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA) is set to expire on July 30, but the country’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, is nowhere near implementing it. The Yogi Adityanath government is yet to notify the rules, form a new authority, select its chairman and members, or even put the infrastructure in place. The previous Akhilesh Yadav government had drafted the rules of RERA and also notified them in October last year. But there was a lot of controversy over it and it was said the then Samajwadi Party government had diluted the definition of ‘ongoing project’ to keep a majority of projects in cities such as Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad out of the purview of the real estate regulator.

After the new BJP government came to power in the state, it started the process of redrafting the rules afresh to protect interests of both the home-buyers and the builders. Speaking to FE on condition of anonymity, an official on the drafting panel said it has already submitted the revised rules to the government. “The rules will be cleared by a committee set up by the government for this, after which it would be cleared by the state Cabinet,” he said, adding that the applications for the chairman and members for RERA have also been forwarded to the selection committee. “The ball is now in the government’s court,” he said.

It may be mentioned that under the RERA Act, all state governments were given three months’ time to put all the necessary infrastructure and delivery mechanism in place to implement the law, including forming a new authority, appointing a chairman for it along with three members, opening a separate bank account for RERA to enable builders and developers to deposit charges and fee along with their registration papers , alongwith a functional website for project and agent registration.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, yet another official of the housing department conceded the fact that UP is unlikely to make it within the deadline. “Despite the fact that new rules have been re-drafted and applications for the appointment of chairman and members have been sent for vetting to the selection committee, we are nowhere near to getting RERA in place within the stipulated time as there is still a lot of work remaining and it is taking a very long time to get anything cleared, especially so as the UP assembly is in the midst of the Budget session. We had already sent a letter to the finance department for permission to open the bank account but there has been no response yet. Obviously, the state’s budget is a priority. Once the session ends on July 28, we hope things to move faster,” he said.

As per RERA Act, till the time a new chairman is selected, the principle secretary, housing has been asked to discharge the duties of RERA. But in the absence of rules and other infrastructure and delivery mechanism, it would be wishful to expect him to shoulder the responsibility with any seriousness.