PANAJI
Urban Development Minister, Francis D'Souza, has said that the final decision on whether more time will be given to public to provide suggestions and recommendations on draft Real Estate Regulation and Development Act (RERA) rules will be taken on Friday, September 1.
The state government had notified the draft RERA rules on August 22 and had given people 10 days to give suggestions and objections to the same. This time-limit came to end on August 31.
The Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) had requested the state government to extend the deadline given for suggestions/objections by five days ie till September 5. For this cause, the GCCI had written a letter to J Ashok Kumar, director & ex-officio additional secretary urban development.
Commenting on this D'Souza said, "GCCI's letter has been sent to the urban development secretary, who is also the law secretary. We will take final decision on extending the deadline on September 1."
D'Souza further said, "We will have to examine whether there is a genuine reason for extending the time-line given for giving suggestions. RERA rules are meant to protect the interest of buyers. These rules have been in public domain for a long time now."
The central government had come out with RERA rules last year. However, the state government notified the draft rules only recently on August 22. Last week, trade activity was affected in Goa as Panaji had by-polls on August 23 and later festivities for Ganesh Chaturthi began, which continued till the current week. It was on this account that GCCI had requested the government to extend the time-line for suggestions.
The draft RERA rules are aimed at giving a lot of protection to the buyers, as there are provisions
wherein a builder will have to give a 5-year warranty for structural defects on an apartment to a buyer.
Apart from it, there are several other provisions to protect buyers' interest as well.
