Besides the occurrence of Covid-19 causing a halt in the construction of real estate projects, large scale migration of labours from cities to their respective villages has caused stress in the sector. Real estate relies heavily on those migrant labours, and they are likely to return only after the festivals.
Moreover, the adverse impact of pandemic causes projects to stand the risk of not being able to conform to the RERA timelines and guidelines.
Government's take to combat the crisis
During the month of May, Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman declared to treat Covid-19 as an event of "Force Majeure" under RERA, meaning any event or effect that cannot be anticipated or controlled in real estate and other businesses. She advised the regulatory authorities such as RERA to extend timelines for project construction and completion as well as issue fresh revised project registration certificates.
Such measures are intended to de-stress real estate developers and ensure completion of the affected projects. Thus, the interest of all stakeholders especially home buyers will be safeguarded.
Later, Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs ensured the government's move by stating, "Some citizens have raised concerns on social media against extension given to real estate developers through Ministry’s Advisory to States/RERA to complete the projects. This has been done as an essential measure to safeguard the interest of home buyers. These measures have been taken to ensure that projects do not get stalled due to disruptions caused by Covid-19 pandemic & flats/ homes get delivered to the home buyers albeit with some delay".
To control the real estate crisis, RERA came into full force from May and gave three months to the builders to register their new and ongoing projects with their respective state RERAs. The regulatory authority is now helping the builders to revise the development plans of the projects and tackle all the shortcomings.
Extension of timelines for project development and completion in various states
As a result of the measures announced by the Finance Minister, several states and urban territories have started extending project registration and completion deadlines.
The Goa government became the first to initiate the extension of the deadline by three months till October for ongoing projects to register with RERA.
- In August, the UP government also extended the deadline for registration for builders under RERA until August 15, along with a graded penalty application till September 30.
- Including the governments of Telengana, Karnataka, and Maharashtra, around 23 states and Union Territories have notified their respective RERA rules for revision.
The state authorities have granted an extension to the validity of projects with a force majeure period of three months to six months to nine months and even more depending on how severely a specific state and its real estate market has been affected by Covid-19.