New Delhi: The government said Sunday it will soon address issues affecting the real estate sector after industry bodies and homebuyers met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to flag their concerns regarding liquidity crunch, demand slowdown and stalled projects.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held two separate meetings – the first with the two apex realtors’ industry bodies CREDAI and NAREDCO, and the second with homebuyer associations, to discuss the issues concerning the real estate sector and steps to be taken to strengthen the industry.
Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur and top officials from the departments of Economic Affairs, Revenue, Housing, CBDT, Corporate Affairs and RERA were also present in the meetings.
According to sources, representatives of CREDAI and NAREDCO said that there is ‘unrest’ in the sector because of liquidity crunch and poor sales and demanded that banks and NBFCs should be encouraged to fund projects. They also expressed concern that the situation could worsen during the coming festive season when generally demand is higher.
There would be a separate high level meeting, under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary, in next few weeks to discuss setting up of a stress fund to deal with stalled projects and bail out lakhs of stuck homebuyers, sources added.
Briefing the media after the meeting, Puri said: “Lot of useful discussions happened at the meeting with the real estate industry. We looked at a number of issues, clarified a few and the government will be addressing these in the days to come.”
Puri also stated that with the discussions, the process of finding solutions to some of the problems that have affected the real estate industry has started.
“Whatever problems are there of the homebuyers, stalled projects etc we are exploring ways to move forward on this. Many homebuyers have moved the Supreme Court and there are judgements too. So it’s a very complicated arena. However, given the goodwill within the government, amongst the homebuyers and industry, so whatever problems are there we will find solutions for them,” Puri asserted.
CREDAI chairman Jaxay Shah said, “We had a great positive, patient hearing from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The government is cognisant about the matter affecting real estate industry including the liquidity crunch and taxation issues. We are very hopeful to have some good and tangible results in coming weeks.”
NAREDCO president Niranjan Hiranandani said: “As you know, the real estate industry is going through a crisis, as is rest of the whole economy. So we are very glad that the Finance Minister and Housing Minister met us Sunday morning to understand the situation. The positive part is that the government understood that we need to address these issues quickly.
To boost demand and address liquidity issues, the industry bodies suggested various measures, including reduction of interest rates on home loans to seven per cent and withdrawal of the recent NHB circular prohibiting subvention scheme (where the interest is paid by the developer for certain fixed time).
Meanwhile, homebuyers body ‘Forum for Peoples’ Collective Efforts’ (FPCE) president Abhay Upadhyay said five lakh customers are stuck across the country due to delayed projects. He demanded creation of a Rs 10,000 crore stress fund to complete such projects and provide relief to these homebuyers.
PTI