Pune:From next month, homebuyers will be able to decide on housing projects based on their gradation on Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority ( MahaRERA ) website. The gradation will be done using IT tools after assessing technical, financial and legal details as well as project overview provided by developers, said MahaRERA chairman Ajoy Mehta , who will retire on Friday. "This will be a game changer helping homebuyers to take an informed decision on any project," he told TOI on the eve of his retirement.
The project was announced last year in September. Mehta said that with the gradation based on the four parameters, homebuyers who had no such option earlier, can now take a safe and sound decision. According to MahaRERA, the grading matrix will be updated every six months in a financial year.
"The first period will be from October 1 to March 31, 2024," said Mehta, who had assumed charge of MahaRERA in February 2021. Having taken special initiatives to execute MahaRERA recovery warrant orders in the state, Mehta said that additional staff at the collectorates would help execute pending orders. The recovery warrant order system in the state has been a cue for other states as well, he added.
According to the latest data, of the 1,117 complaints pertaining to 423 projects for recovery warrant order of Rs 672.91 crore, MahaRERA has recovered Rs 175 crore from 131 projects based on 268 complaints. In Maharashtra, more than 46,000 projects have been registered since MahaRERA was established in May 2017.
Of these, more than 15,000 projects have been completed. Since its inception MahaRERA has received more than 25,000 complaints, of which 17,000 have been settled. The MahaRERA chairman had insisted on project information disclosure on the website as well as ensuring quality assurance certificate at the end of every financial year to guarantee the project's construction quality.
For senior citizen homes, a detailed framework outlining the minimum amenities and facilities to be provided was also formalised. Further, to ensure transparency, MahaRERA had told developers to open three separate designated bank accounts for every project, enabling better monitoring of transactions. Those advertisements lacking MahaRERA registration number and QR code were subjected to suo moto action by MahaRERA.
Another important step was to provide an exit or provision to developers to cancel the registration of unviable projects and make it mandatory for real estate agents to obtain certification through training and examination to ensure they have knowledge of regulatory provisions. Mehta was earlier Maharashtra chief secretary and commissioner of municipal corporation of Greater Mumbai and chairman and MD of Maharashtra State Power Generation Limited..
