Fadnavis bats for Realtors, to move PM, FM with plea for OTR

Stating that the employment generator Real Estate sector deserves all support and respect, Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra legislative assembly and former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has promised to take up the various demands of the crisis-ridden developer community with the centre and try to get them resolved. Responding to the online campaign launched by the MMR Action Committee of CREDAI MCHI, he said at a webinar with the developer community that their “logical, genuine and reasonable” demand for a one time debt restructuring will be taken up with the Finance Minister. He concurred with the developers that this step will bring relief to the industry facing a lot of financial stress and informed that he had discussed the real estate with the FM and had got a positive response.

He later tweeted that he had received online petition from CREDAI-MCHI, signed by almost 35,000 developers. "The real estate industry requires many interventions from State & Central Government. Along with other main issues are restructuring of loans, pushing banks, HFCs and NBFCs to pass on benefits of repo rate cuts to the consumers, input tax credit to be given under GST. I assure all members that these and all issues will be taken up with the appropriate authorities.”

He expressed his shock that banks, but for SBI, have not yet passed on the benefit of the unprecedented repo rate cut to the end consumer. He agreed with CREDAI MCHI that the massive defaults arising out of high interest rate will ultimately lead to a big jump in NPAs for the banks as well and “this will be disastrous for the economy as a whole”. The banks’ attitude does not live up to the good intentions of the Centre and RBI who are keen on increasing the liquidity," he remarked. On extending the RERA time limit for completion of projects to March 2021, he said there is a provision for this and he would take it up with the government. On facilitating GST input credit for new projects, he said the matter has been flagged to the GST Council.

Earlier, making a presentation on the developers’ issues, MMR action committee spokesperson Ajay Ashar told Fadnavis that banks are in a very comfortable position when they deal with real estate developers. They get an ROE of 22-25% which is the highest in the world. Banks also enjoy very high net interest margins on lending to real estate, yet the developer community gets a step-motherly treatment. CREDAI MCHI president Nayan Shah pointed out that nothing from the ₹20 lakh-crore package announced by the Centre benefits the real estate developers. The economy as a whole will revive if real estate survives as every paisa given to the developer goes into the economy straight. Real estate, he said, plays a big role in meeting the PM's dream to develop India into a five trillion dollar economy.