Nearly 1 lakh homebuyers in legal quagmire to get their flats

By Sumit Saxena

New Delhi, Aug 1 (IANS) Nearly 1 lakh homebuyers find themselves in a legal quagmire as the flats they booked years back in Delhi NCR are nowhere near completion by the three prominent builders - Amrapali, Unitech and Jaypee.

Frustrated, they hope either the court or the government would take some radical measures so that they can get their dream flats for which they invested their hard earned money.

In Amrapali's case, the Supreme Court has already delivered a judgement appointing NBCC to complete the unfinished projects and also appointed a court receiver to oversee the overall management of these projects.

The court has directed the homebuyers to deposit their pending dues within three months in an escrow account operational on court premises.

However, the homebuyers wonder where the money would come from.

"We appreciate the judgement, but still a lot of clarity is missing. Banks are not disbursing funds, which could be utilized in clearing the pending dues in Amrapali. Thousands of homebuyers have already exhausted their savings. There is a shortfall of Rs 1700 crore in completing the projects. Where will this money come from? These are big issues and hopefully we get clarity on it in the next hearing slated on August 9," said Abhishek Kumar, President of Noida Extension Flat Owners Welfare Association.

In the case of Unitech, the Centre has proposed NBCC as a project management consultant to complete the projects. The homebuyers have been recently burdened with Rs 50 crore audit fee in the NBCC proposal. They seek ouster of NBCC and revival of Unitech.

"We are totally against any red tape bureaucratic hurdles like NBCC and that too at an additional cost of 8%...... Instead of delivering our homes along with 12% compensation, the government is giving us this one big white elephant called NBCC to feed additional 8%. We are poor homebuyers we don't earn to keep feeding government companies for no reason," said Vivek Tyagi, President, All India Association of Unitech Homebuyers'.

The homebuyers are also apprehensive on quality control exercised by NBCC in the upscale flats of Unitech. Therefore, they want government and court to work out a solution to revive Unitech.

"SC has already asked Centre to take action against banks and Licensing Authorities, but instead of taking action against all such culprits (in Unitech's case), government is proposing NBCC to kill all home buyers....," added Tyagi.

Jaypee homebuyers are positioned diametrically opposite to buyers of Amrapali and Unitech. They see consortium of banks impeding the completion of housing projects.

"We have major real estate developers like Adani Infra and Tata pitching to take over Jaypee unfinished projects. But, the consortium of banks are simply blocking their move. The banks want their money at the cost of our homes. This is gross injustice. The government should help the homebuyers,'" said Sanjeev Sahani, a senior level member of Jaypee homebuyers' association.

(Sumit Saxena can be contacted at sumit.s@ians.in)