Maharashtra's realty watchdog to monitor construction quality: Chairman

For projects that started before Maha-RERA came into being, 38 per cent of developers used to come to the regulator asking for an extension, while the same has now come down to under 10 per cent, Mehta said.

Maharashtra's real estate regulatory authority chairman Ajoy Mehta on Friday said the realty watchdog is now planning to shift focus on quality of construction.

Speaking at a conclave organised by industry lobby Naredco, Mehta said till now, the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Maha-RERA) has focused on timely delivery of projects and is thinking of shifting attention after achieving successes in its original focus area.

''We are now getting 'n number' of complaints, saying we got the house on time but the plaster falls, first rain the ceiling is leaking, there is moisture coming in from the side. These are the disputes that we need to solve,'' Mehta said.

''We will not wait for the plaster to fall, we will monitor quality from day one,'' the bureaucrat-turned-realty regulator added.

Maha-RERA is looking to launch a discussion paper in which it plans to list out a mechanism to monitor the quality of the product delivered by realty developers, he said.

Explaining the need for monitoring quality, Mehta, a qualified civil engineer, said there are standards for every input which goes into making a construction, but there is no standard for the final product which is handed over to a home buyer.

The law has a provision called defect liability clause under which the quality focus can be implemented, he said. Addressing property developers, he asked the industry not to look at the focus on quality as an impediment, but as an effort to oil the economy for better performance.

He recollected that after the formation of Maha-RERA in 2017, there was an unease among the developer community about the presence of a regulator to look over the industry and stressed that there have been a lot of successes since then. For projects that started before Maha-RERA came into being, 38 per cent of developers used to come to the regulator asking for an extension, while the same has now come down to under 10 per cent, Mehta said.

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