TNRERA to be monitored by Chief secy

CHENNAI:

The implementation of Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA), 2016, will be reviewed by Union Housing secretary Durga Shankar and Tamil Nadu Chief secretary Girija Vaidyanathan in the next one week.

This comes as Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has asked the state to set up a a permanent regulatory authority and appellate Tribunal or else the real estate transactions in Tamil Nadu could be hit.

It is learnt that additional secretary of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Rajiv Ranjan Mishra will be in Chennai on August 18 to review implementation of RERA in Tamil Nadu and Andaman and Nicobar Island after which Union Housing Secretary Durga Shankar will review the progress of all urban schemes and RERA later in the day.

Similarly, Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan will review the progress on Real Estate Regulatory Authority and the regularisation of unauthorised layout as well as simplification of procedures for building plan approval on August 22.

This comes as interim head of Tamil Nadu Real Estate Regulatory Authority is being shifted into CMDA premises after earlier moves to locate it in Guindy. The move has resulted in High Court appointed Monitoring Committee member M G Deivasahayam stating that CMDA is catching the regulator.

He has also hit out at the move of appointing former CMDA officials without undergoing selection process for the post stating that it will undermine the whole process of having a real estate regulator.

Another issue is the subsequent Government Orders oer how the financial transactions under TNRERA has to be carried out. There have been two Government Orders over remitting the registration fee in the bank account. The initial order by TNRERA on July 11 was that the registration fee was to be remitted under State Bank of India (State government account) or in any of the treasuries or sub treasuries.

This GO was immediately amended stating that the fee has to be remitted in Indian Bank of CMDA branch in Egmore. “Why was the amount not being deposited in state government account or in treasuries when TNRERA is handling not only realty issues pertaining to the state but also of Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” wondered a former official.

Interestingly, the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 was notified by the state only on June 22. After the notification, the state government failed to act until the Centre ticked the officials to carry out the registration manually on July before a website is in place.

As a result, the authority started manually registering the projects. A website was created only a week later and this failed to function properly. However, the Centre has given the state time till March next year to have a website ready.