Revival Measures for Real Estate

1.    Reduce “Time to Market” i.e. Faster Cash Flow Cycle :               It typically takes atleast an year after land acquisition for Design, Building Plan approval, Fire approval, EIA & RERA registration, before Developer can hit the market. It is too long a Cash Flow Cycle, increasing working capital requirement and delivery period for the project.

                 The Fire Approval & EIA approval can be subsumed within Building Plan approvals itself, without diluting compliance to Fire Safety norms & EIA requirements.All the NBC fire safety norms & EIA requirements are anyways already catered for during the Project Design. As such let there be an Integrated Building Plan approval incorporating the Fire & EIA approvals. This should shorten the Project cycle and “Time to Market” by about 6 months, benefitting the Customers & Developers alike.

2.    Discard Licence & Licence Renewals :

Licence Policy is a vestige of Licence Permit Raj, long discarded for Industrial Sectors, has outlived its utility and there is no reason to retain it for Real Estate Sector. All areas which are part of Approved & Notified Master Plans, should be deemed licensed. Existing secoral caps on %age of Group Housing, Commercial, IT/ITES usage etc. can be easily enforced thru Building Plan Approvals on 1st come 1st served basis.

3.    Do Away with Forest Deptt. NOC :

Let all Forest areas be demarcated and marked on the Approved & Notified Master Plan itself. the Town Planning deptt. can co-ordinate with Forest deptt. for this. 

4. Discard Building Height Permission by Aviation Authorities :

Let the Max. Building Height permissible by Aviation Authorities for respective areas be marked on the Notified & Approved Master Plan. The areas with different permissible heights may have different colour codes, or any other suitable representation. This will obviate the need for separate Height Clearance for each case by Developer, and also reduce the work load of Aviation Authorities.                                                  

 Managing Approvals & Complianes is currently core to Developers success consuming much time & resources, but with above reforms Developers can focus more on Product Innovation, Delivery & Customer satisfaction.

 These reforms would have been unthinkable till few years ago, but are now very much in the realm of possibility given Modi Govt.’s unprecedented resolve & intent to resolve core issues; and a keenness to engage with trade & industry for constructive feedback.

 Above measures are essentially implementation issues & do not involve any revenue giveaways (given the tight fiscal situation), and as such can sail through.

 The Covid crisis has presented this opportunity to push through radical reforms for debottlenecking & growth, and Real Estate industry (incl. CREDAI, Naredco) should aggressively lobby for these. More shall follow this.