Realty high risk business for funding

Track2Realty Roundtable-VIII

Venue—Hotel Kohinoor Continental

Moderator—Pranay Vakil, Chairman, Knight Frank India

Panelists—Kruti Jain, Director, Kumar Urban Developers

                        Sunil Dahiya, MD, Vigneshwara Developers

                        Atul Modak, Head, Kohinoor City

                        Ravi Sinha, CEO & Managing Editor, Track2Realty

Kruti Jain: Today we are looking at a situation where real estate is isolated by the Government as an industry it does not trust. It could be because it is too segregated, too micro for a Government to take note about 5000 developers which are organized under CREDAI. Problem is in saying this sector is not supposed to take loans from ECB. We are not asking for unlimited funds.

In terms of innovation, real estate being a high risk business, whether it is litigations, titles, I know of societies still fighting in court where it shows to 1500 people and the developer is retired but he is still fighting the case because someone is saying that the land belongs to him.

Atul Modak: There are people who bought a flat, one year after occupying the flat they are told one day that they are on forest land.

Kruti Jain: Those issues are there and I will not blame the Government for being scared of those issues but the question is, when the steel industry started, Henry Ford was looked at as a goon. He used to lock the workers in till the production was finished the way he wanted. The point is every industry started at some point as an unregulated situation. We are not saying don’t regulate us, we are saying while you regulate us, also regulate the rest of the ancillary industries.

Sunil Dahiya: We are already so regulated. We are not the ones who buy agricultural land and colonize it. We buy the land from the Government in auction and wait for certain permissions. Those permissions have their own regulations. We have to complete the project in a certain period or apply for an extension. All of them have their own criminal and civil liabilities. This regulation bill is a strong confusion created by the Government. It is needed for those people who sell without any permission.

…..to be continued