Track2Realty Roundtable: Has ECB benefitted Indian realty-V

Venue—Hotel Kohinoor Continental, Mumbai

Moderator—Pranay Vakil—Chairman Praron Consultancy

Atul Modak—Head-Kohinoor City

Gaurav Gupta—Director, Omkar Realtors & Developers

Jhumur Ghosh— National Feature Editor, Times of India

Ravi Sinha—CEO & Managing Editor, Track2Realty 

Atul Modak: The perception that you are talking about is true. On that we had a meeting with the members of MCHI-CREDAI and the focus was this poor perception that builder is chor (thief), not interested to give possession and he will take away your money. But that is not the case as in majority of the cases developers’ intention is good. They want to deliver project on time, but because of delays in approvals, added to the funding gap and he has nowhere to go once he has launched the project.

Pranay Vakil: But sir, let me interrupt you and ask you do you seriously mean to say that all the developers are honest in developing the projects.

Atul Modak: I will say majority of them are honest, only thing is that their calculation has gone wrong in the sense that they wanted to expand, they have gone for land banking for future development which backfired due to macro economic reasons. But their intention was right.

Pranay Vakil: See what we find is that, to give you an example, there is a very big apartment of 20 thousand square feet. Do you know what the FSI consumption of this apartment is?

Gaurav Gupta: Must be seven or eight thousand square feet.

Pranay Vakil: Seven thousand square feet. You used the word chori, so I will re-use it. In the light of facts and in that proportion, how can you expect the public to look at the developers in good light? I am asking you a very straight forward question. I am part of the industry, please don’t misunderstand me.

Ravi Sinha: We are all part of and concerned with the industry. The larger issue is to create level playing field for all the stake holders?

Atul Modak: But that does not mean entire industry has done it. Some people have done it, but if one person gets scot free, the other person can not say oh he is making money and nothing is happening. I am being honest and not being rewarded for that.

Pranay Vakil: You open the newspaper and see an advertisement which offers a flat with forest on every floor. I mean you begin to wonder as a buyer where is this FSI coming from. The new DC rule has at least changed that and the best advantage to my mind from the buyers perspective is that one has now got comparable options.

…to be continued