CREDAI urges developers to build affordable houses

Visakhapatnam: CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India), on Friday pledged to develop 14,500 affordable housing units (AHU) in Vijayawada, Kurnool and Visakhapatnam in the state.

CREDAI through this pledge reiterates its commitment to help achieve Government of India’s mission of “Housing for All by 2022”. The pledge was made at its Executive Committee - Governing Council (EC-GC) meeting held in the city on Friday.

CREDAI AP President, ARE Siva Reddy presided over the meeting. An interactive workshop on ‘Affordable Housing’, conducted by Shantilal Kataria, Chairman, RERA legal and Affordable Housing Committee, CREDAI was held on the occasion. Addressing the queries, Siva Reddy  shared industry insights with the CREDAI developers.

The CREDAI has planned to encourage developers to build more houses under the affordable housing segment, the registration fee and other charges should be exempted for flats with a carpet area of 60 square metres and below.

The meeting also discussed about the RERA issues including title insurance should not be made mandatory for registration whereas the RERA complaint fee should be increased to Rs 25,000 to avoid frivolous complaints against developers. Another significant issue that needs to be addressed is the defect liability of 5 years that should be restricted to structural stability and not on the fixtures provided. 

The CREDAI broadly discussed about the developers in Visakhapatnam who are facing a unique problem in respect of procuring sand since the city has no river beds and must depend on neighbouring districts like Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Rajahmundry.

To overcome the problem, CREDAI Visakhapatnam suggests steps to encourage the manufacture of sand industry by way of subsidies and concessions in the form of subsidised power, concession in fees and other charges for mines to encourage individuals/companies to manufacture sand units. This would ensure availability of manufactured sand at competitive rates with natural sand for real estate developers, the CREDAI opined.  

CREDAI national president Jaxay Shah said the EC-GC has also been met with great response and appreciation from various CREDAI delegates which also maintains our attention and focus on the development of tier II and III cities in the country. 

CREDAI national president-elect Satish Magar said the association, through its thought leadership platforms such as EC-GC meetings, NATCON, New India Summit has led the industry through the transitory phase of the past one and a half years.