The party’s news spokesperson Khushboo, a Tamil film actress, told a press conference here that “the home buyer who puts his life savings into buying a roof over his head has been left in the lurch in favour of the builder mafia and real estate sharks.”
She said the cabinet decisions appears to be in tune with the government’s anti-farmer move of removing the consent and social impact assessment clauses from the Land Acquisition Act And then resort to the anti-tribal step of minimising protection of forest land in the Western Ghats.
Khusboo pointed out that it was the pioneering initiative of the UPA-II government to introduce the real estate bill in the Rajya Sabha on August 14, 2013 to protect interests of the home buyer, promote fair play in real estate transactions and ensure timely execution of projects.
The original bill required the builders to keep 70 per cent of advances received from the flat or house buyers in a separate bank account for use only in construction to plug the mischief of long delays in completion of the projects and ensure that the buyers’ hard-earned money is not diverted.
The Union cabinet has not only reduced this amount to 50 per cent but also diluted Section 59(2) that provided for holding directors, managers, secretaries and other officers of real estate companies accountable and removed the provision to blacklist a defaulting realtor twice.
Khusboo asked where are the “achhe din” (good days) promised by Prime Minister Modi during the polls. He and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley were assuring the middle class to raise the income tax exemption slab to Rs 5 lakh per annum but Jaitley now wants the middle class to fend for itself, with no help as the prices of food items and essential commodities keep rising and the only hope of lower interest rates to bring down the burden of the housing EMIs is also lost.
“The last straw that would surely break the back of our middle class is the government’s move to dilute the real estate bill,” Khusboo added.
