In less than a year, the number of lapsed or stalled projects in Maharashtra have gone up by around 26 percent. Their number now stands at 5,756, up from 4,555 in March 2022, according to data provided by the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA). In 1,882 of the stalled projects, 70 percent of the work has been completed.
Against the backdrop of this spike in stalled projects, the MahaRERA has divided 624 of the 1,882 projects in four categories to try and get them back on track. In a statement, the MahaRERA said the projects had been divided into four groups according to their current status. The first group includes projects that can be completed without compromising the rights of home buyers.
The second group contains those where there is a need to reconcile developers and home buyers. In the third group are projects that require the MahaRERA’s intervention due to certain issues with local authorities or lending banks. And in the fourth category are projects where the developer is missing and the home buyers can complete the project by replacing the developer.
These projects will be handled by six self-regulatory organisations (SRO) registered with the MahaRERA. The SROs include developers belonging to apex industry bodies like MCHI-CREDAI, NAREDCO, etc.
The SROs will in turn appoint intermediary groups to get the 624 projects on track. These intermediary groups will include architects, financial institutions, developers, housing associations of home buyers, and conciliators. Close to 40 percent of the lapsed projects were registered as new projects after MahaRERA was set up in May 2017, according to data accessed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in Dec 2022.
According to the data provided by MahaRERA, there were a total of 4,555 lapsed projects in Maharashtra as of March 31, 2022. Of these, 2,789 projects were old projects delayed by more than six years. These were registered with MahaRERA as ongoing projects. The remaining 1,766 (39 percent) projects were launched after May 2017, and their registrations had also lapsed.
Further, over 50 percent of the projects registered as 'ongoing' with MahaRERA when the regulator came into being in 2017 were yet to be completed as of September 2022, revealed MahaRERA under the RTI Act. About 13,246 projects were listed as ‘ongoing’ in 2017, of which 6,557, or about 49.5 percent, had been completed as of September 2022. A total 36,461 projects, including the ‘ongoing’ ones, have been registered since the inception of MahaRERA. Only about a quarter of these — Of these, only 9,637 — have been completed.
Many of the projects that were registered in 2018, 2019, and 2020 have lapsed, along with several earlier projects. According to MahaRERA, 309 of these 624 lapsed projects are located in the Mumbai Metropolitan region, 220 in Pune, 20 in Nagpur, 29 in Aurangabad, 41 in Nashik, and five in Amravati.
