Union govt planning market friendly Rent Act

Chennai:

The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Development is planning a new Rent Act and a draft has been circulated to the State governments, according to joint secretary of the ministry Aruna Sundararajan.

Delivering the keynote address on the inaugural session of Estate South 2012 organised by Confederation of Indian Industry, she said the central legislation, which will be model act, would be market-friendly and contractual between owner and tenant.

“In the next six months to one year we will be getting feedback from the states on the draft bill before it is developed into act,” she said.

She said there is also a provision in the act to have fast track courts where the disputes could be resolved with in 20 days.

She also said the government is working on the second phase of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission and the focus will be more on housing and urban development. She also said the sgovernment has a shortage of 26 million houses and in the XII five-year plan the target will be to build another 10 million to 15 million houses.

She said the current delays in approval process, which is adding to the cost, was being looked into by the Central Government and it has constituted a committee with a mandate to come out with a mechanism to address this issue.  “But the Centre has only limited role as 90 per cent of the clearances were to be from the state government,” she added.

Reading out the speech of  Deepak Parekh, chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation,   G Krishnamurthy, CEO and Managing Director of HDFC Property Fund, said the long-term prospects of the real estate industry in India  was very bright owing to increasing population and rapid urbanization.  He said that the real estate industry should press for the setting up of a regulator to bring in more transparency and commitment to customers for the long-term benefit of the industry. 

Firdose Vandrevala, chairman, Estate South 2012 and chairman and managing director Hirco Developments, said the real estate industry was  highly interdependent and required  the  team work of people concerned to ensure success