MahaRERA portal sees surge in project registrations

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There is a significant increase in the developers updating details about their housing projects by regularly filing Quarterly Progress Report (QPR) with the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA). Currently, information on 62 per cent of housing projects is updated as compared to 0.02 per cent back in January 2023, when MahaRERA had started to review these projects.

Confirming the same, a MahaRERA official said, "The availability of updated information on MahaRERA's website has helped in significantly lowering and controlling the number of complaints from homebuyers."

"The rise in submission of QPR is the herculean efforts, constant follow-ups and strict action by MahaRERA against developers not responding to all communication. MahaRERA initiated strict action such as freezing the bank account linked with the project and suspending MahaRERA registration number. These steps helped in ensuring builders increasingly comply with MahaRERA's regulations," the officer said.

Currently, there are 18,012 active projects in Maharashtra. Of these, 11,080 projects are updating the QPR. This translates to 62 per cent of the housing projects ensuring project information is kept updated on MahaRERA's website. In January 2023, when the Compliance Cell was established, only 2 of the 748 projects or 0.02 per cent were complying by keeping the QPR updated.

The duties and responsibilities of developers are mentioned in Sections 3, 4 and 11 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016. Apart from that Order 33/2022 dated July 5, 2022, also has defined roles and responsibilities of the builders. As per these provisions, the developers are obligated to ensure QPR is updated on MahaRERA's portal every January 20, April 20, July 20 and October 20. The report must also include Forms 1 and 2 detailing construction progress made and Form 3 providing a financial breakdown of how many flats, and parking slots have been booked, the payment received, expenditure incurred, any amendment in the project's plan, etc. To ensure transparency, these details must be kept up-to-date, he explained.

To ensure strict implementation of these provisions in the interest of homebuyers, MahaRERA started the "Financial Quarter Based Project Progress Reporting System" starting with the first QRP submitted in January 2023. For this, a separate Compliance Cell was established. Through this cell, MahaRERA initiated various measures such as holding seminars, and discussions and taking legal actions against non-compliant projects by levying penalties, suspending their MahaRERA registration number, suspending the sale of flats, and freezing the bank account. All these efforts put together resulted in 62 per cent of the housing projects starting to update the information on a quarterly basis, he concluded.