Amitabh Kant To Head Real Estate Committee; To Look Into Stalled Housing Projects

The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has set up a 14-member committee headed by former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, to examine issues related to stalled real estate projects and recommend various ways for their completion.

The panel will deliberate on the issues of legacy stalled projects and suggest ways to complete and hand over these projects to homebuyers in a time-bound manner, the Ministry order states.

The panel has been set up nearly a year after it was decided by the Central Advisory Council (CAC) headed by the Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

According to the mandate, the Committee will submit a report within six months from the date of its first meeting.

The third meeting of the CAC was constituted under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) held in April 2022 to deliberate issues related to the implementation of RERA in states and union territories (UTs).

It was resolved to conduct Council meeting at least once in a year and sub-group consisting of concerned stakeholders to meet once in six months, under the chairmanship of the secretary, MoHUA.

Regarding the issue of structural safety of projects, the Council decided that the development authorities might ask for a structural safety certificate from the site engineer and promoter, at the time of applying for a completion certificate.

Amitabh Kant has been appointed as the chairman of the panel with senior government officials, and heads of RERA from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana as its members.

Officials from various Ministries and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI), National Housing Bank (NHB), and a professor from National Law University (NLU) are among other members of the committee.

The panel has been given the authority to appoint more members if needed.