RERA, Hon.Supreme Court & Real Estate!

 

                                                          

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“We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

“Any fool can make a rule
But only a fool will mind it.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I never needed RERA for being transparent with my clients as that’s part of the deal, I believe” … Me

Well, sorry first of all for putting my name along with the Greats such as Hunter Thompson & Thoreau, but what I shared is what I have learned from such names & can put it in words & more than that in real life! Though the sharing is about RERA which is an act as per our law system & let me tell you I am no legal expert (disclaimer no 1) but tried to analyse the subject from the business aspect of it! Few terms have become so much part of our vocabulary (thanks to news media & social media) that many a times we mention them too casually ("Atiparichaya Avadnya', plz goggle for meaning) & they have lost the respect or the impact they are meant to be! Though a few still has that effect intact i.e. ED & DRI, though even ACB & CBI has lost it, so RERA doesn’t have any chance. Fun is, the creator of RERA (Supreme Court) has also started thinking that it has lost its purpos, which is my subject of sharing!

The reason is a recent news where Hon Supreme Court (SC) which is apex body of judicial system of our country, has raised serious concerns over functioning or say the very purpose of RERA authorities which operates State wise. Not just this, Hon SC has questioned govt (of respective States) to introspect the functioning of RERA authority & some very basic observations such as why the State head of any RERA authority is some retired IAS officer & why not a qualified professional person from architecture or housing field is not appointed as head here. As well, Hon. SC has passed remarks to the extent that these RERA authorities are meant only to protect default builders (I have some say about it) & let’s close such establishments which are non-functional & are deviating from the purpose! Let me tell you, I haven’t read the exact verdict & these are points which are in the news media but even if these comments are fifty percent true then it's serious & especially for the industry which is already bogged down with NOC’s, Tribunals. Authorities which work as parallel govt in many cases & RERA is definitely one such! Let me tell you at start, I am not against RERA rather say the purpose for which RERA has been formed or come in existence, i.e. transparency with the clients of real estate but as the Hon SC has pointed, is it delivering for what’s it’s been formed, then frankly my answer (or analysis) is a big NO. And fault is not of RERA of its provisions but as usual the way it’s been functioning & with due respect to Hon SC, its their very own baby may be a step baby yet it’s a juridical system & SC needs to do a lot more than mere passing comment on RERA’ functioning, is my subject of sharing!

Ok, before going ahead (not too long just a few paras, lol), RERA is an act which has been made nationwide to check/ curb the wrong practices in real estate & the same short form is used for an authority which has been formed State wise to ensure proper functioning of this act! Under this act every real estate project more than seven units is needed to be registered with State RERA authority & progress as well legal documentation is monitored by the authority periodically. This may seem simple & plain on surface (like any other govt system or noc) but it’s not, especially for the builders who respect laws & rules as those who don't they don’t even bother to register the project & yet get through! If my statement is not true then there wouldn’t have been millions of illegal buildings in the State & still everyday their numbers are increasing as they don’t go to RERA so no question arises to face any action by the RERA authority, is the fact (read as joke)! But when a normal builder goes to RERA authority for registration of his project then a common-sense thing is, all he has to do is upload whatever information he has, in the format of RERA authority & the authority has to do is check periodically that the information is right & being followed, simple, isn’t it? Well, try doing that & then you will realize the importance of the RERA consultants, a latest breed in real estate. Consultants, I respect as I deal with many of them such as plumbing consultant, Structural Consultant, Electrical Consultant, an architect itself is a consultant but RERA consultant, why you need one as nothing technical is involved here & that’s the game! The entire registration process & its updating has become nothing but one more NOC in real estate & we all know one NOC means one table (read as many) & to avoid delay the builder is needed to appoint a consultant who deals with those tables & gets the things done, this is defeat of the very purpose of RERA is what my subject of sharing!

As you can check RERA website & information & updating process, all they should ask is all what is on record i.e. sanction plan, conditions of sanction plans for the developer & details of the project & financials of the company. Upload it as well the RERA authority can get all these from the servers of respective depts’ also, why the developers have to do all the stuff again as except specifications & amenities every other details even balance sheets of the company & details of the partners are with banks, registrar of companies which you can link with RERA server & update, right? At the same time any modification or addition in the sanctioned plan if the developer is doing legally then it’s on server of respective local body, get it from there but no, RERA wants everything the builder must do again & in the way RERA needs it, this is the reason of existence of RERA consultants as the builder (right one) is tired of delays after buying the land & unless he obtains RERA registration number he can’t take booking or launch the project because he is a law abiding builder, which is fast becoming a fault actually!  And then the RERA forms have hundred things which even doesn’t comes under their preview yet they are asking is, things such as from where builder will be providing water or roads, these are planning authority’s jurisdiction & they should ask the builder while passing the plans or while accepting development charges, why RERA has to ask to the builder & there are many such things & this is why we need RERA consultants!

Now, about the financials also, any project is a risk like share market & RERA doesn’t got answer what if the project doesn’t get sold & frankly that’s not even expected also by RERA as best way of doing business in any industry is let the clients judge the product & decide whether to buy it or not/ In any other industry than real estate that’s the rule & that's why there is no such separate authority or act for any product but real estate has it. It’s not because the builders cheat people it’s because of the wrong policies about housing & urban planning the builders (read carefully) who wants to follow laws & make a right home & sale it at affordable price are unable to do it, that’s why the wrong builders who are cheat builds illegal homes & common man is forced to buy his home in such projects because of which need of RERA has come in picture! So, RERA must target such builders & their projects but unfortunately its targeting those who are already doing their job in right way, I know this statement will make many faces frown but had it not been so then millions of people in the city like Pune would have been still homeless as they were built even when RERA want there, right?  I repeat, it’s not about RERA right or wrong, its about the way its being functioning as it must be for ease of both parties of the deal but unfortunately it seems in many cases functioning thinking as one party (read as the builder) is wrong always, which isn’t or shouldn’t be the way, is my subject of sharing!

And outcome is not just about the delays in RERA registration or renewals or updating but even many clients are using RERA as blackmailing tool & then thanks to social media we have so called Information Act activists too, which in most cases use that information for the only purpose which we all know, but prefer to keep mum for respective reasons! Can anybody tell how many genuine clients have been benefitted with RERA & got their problem solved in time, as these cases & figures does matter a lot!  At the same time there is so much confusion about where RERA is applicable & where MoFA (Maharashtra Flat ownership Act) is applicable, taking the dispute between clients & builders to a new level. And even the authorities too are divided on such things as two organizations are approached when a dispute between builder & flat holders happens, one is society registrar & second is, police & especially the latter are clueless as to what action is to be taken & on whom & under which act. Outcome is harassment, that too the builder ends up always on the wrong side of the stick & again we know the obvious reason for the same! My question is, why not RERA authorities (the top bosses) proactively start taking awareness programs jointly with Police dept (to start with) & make them know the provisions under these acts & duties as well as responsibilities of both the parties i.e. builders as well the flat holders. You can conduct such programs even online also so save time as well they can get recorded for reference. At the same time send dummy developers & clients to RERA portal to register both sides routine things i.e. proposal & updation / renewals for builder & complaint or suggestion of the flat holders. As then you will know what the end-user has to face while dealing on a routine basis with RERA.

One more thing, RERA controls even the real estate agents & brokers also but that’s on paper, what it is doing actually to control functioning of this fraternity which often misleads clients & builders also for securing their commission. I have some good real estate agent friends & with due respect, right from creating fake accounts of projects to shaming the ongoing projects of some builder on social media, every possible dirty practice is in game at present about which RERA is silent! At the same time RERA also tried to introduce quality control on the site, which again, good intention, but wrong line of thinking & implementations. As its unending thing to control any industry, just like "Hanuman Ji Ki Punchh" (plz google) the list of controls will keep on extending & then in that zest the basic purpose of RERA will get lost (which already is). RERA is a legal authority, it can frame a system to monitor the way you can keep tap on a project but it can’t become a quality controller or specification verifier, that’s not its job! Same way, managing financials of a project is a complex job, & RERA must not take responsibility of the same Profit & Loss of any business that too like real estate is something only the developer knows, & his books of accounts as there are many verticals which defines financial success of a project, unlike other industries. And right from project finance to booking status things keep on changing as per the local scenario as real estate is very much local business. The clients also can’t say that RERA should take care of everything, they too need to be vigilant & clarify things while giving a single rupee to any developer which they don’t, is a fact & later blames RERA! As, RERA’s purpose is to make the home buyer aware about the project he is booking & then see that he keeps getting timely information about the project & provide a proper protection for his consumer rights. And like any other product there was & is consumer forum, as well civil & criminal court yet for real estate products RERA has been formed, so how are we measuring the success of RERA, is my reason for sharing! Has this eased out working for the builders, the answer we know & now even the Hon SC itself has raised doubts about RERA, from the angle of consumer protection. Thankfully, Hon SC specifically mentioned (sarcastically) RERA being in function to protect the defaulting builders only, which means there are builders which are functioning in the right way also & only if their number increases then that's the success of RERA, is what I feel! One request to Hon. SC, if you think or feel that there are lacunas in functioning of RERA then instead just passing comments or suggestions why can’t you order (which only you can) to the govt or concerned to reform this forum & see the outcome in specified time limit, because if Hon SC can’t do it then do you expect the builders or the home buyers on their own can get this done, as such remarks paints all builder fraternity in wrong shade in the eyes of society! As well, RERA itself needs to come forward & tell people about impact it has made on the real estate’s wrong doings & by figures, as this is age of social media & people need proof! That’s the right way to gain back trust of both sides of table on RERA’s functioning!

Formation of RERA was a great thing for real estate but now it’s nearly a decade & high time to analyse the entire system under it & reform as per the needs of both sides i.e. developers & the home buyers & for that the system must take representatives of both sides in confidence & act as a team, proactively!  I think when you are supposed to control (read as monitor) a human dependant industry like real estate & that too most of them are not tech savvy then you need to take some extra efforts to get the outcome you want, which is not happening at present with RERA thingy, is a fact which we must acknowledge as then only we can improve it, adios with this note!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked...

 

https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2025/12/pune-real-estate-in-2026.html

https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.html

Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

www.punecorporation.org

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com / https://junglebelles.in/

Lesson of Expressway's Nightmare!

 

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“Some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost.” ― Erol Ozan

“From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.” ~ Aaron Lauritsen

“I love road trips, they teach me patience, lots of it’… Me.

Oh k, actually in all philosophy/ spiritual stories, the path is very important object as it decides your fate is what most philosophies say or believe & no wonder when my sharing is about a particular Path, I took help of such wise words! Though the sharing is not philosophical but sheer technical & logical which are effective only when used in combination & if we don’t use them in that way then the outcome is what Mumbaikar & Punekar (later more) witnessed in the first week of second month of the New Year i.e. chaos on Expressway connecting two major cities not just in Maharashtra but even in entire country! I am sure many of us have been reading/ seeing (Insta/FB) about the mega (even that’s a small term) traffic jam on the expressway because a propane(explosive liquid gas) carrying tanker got toppled in the ghat section. BTW, traffic jam also is not appropriate term because it’s used when the traffic gets slowed down & gets cleared in some hours, at least on the very same day but what happened on expressway on 4^th Feb 26, is traffic-dead as the vehicles started moving back on the path after nearly two days i.e. forty hours, that can’t be a just traffic jam, right?

I haven’t written a while about civic issues as I started feeling like the common voter as what use of voting if all parties are going to come together after election result, same way what’s use of writing about civic issues as its not the govt doesn’t know about them, its just the govt doesn’t care anymore about it, may it be of any party! The govt looks after only those issues which it thinks are important & no more what is important for the common man is also important for the govt!  Rather recently I came across a quote about democracy by a renowned economist, “it’s by few people, of few people & for few people”! Yet there is something named hope & more than that still some fight has left in me which makes me write & outcome is such sharing! Coming back to our dear Mumbai Pune ExpressWay (Eway, I will use as short form) which was is news right from the beginning since the day it was announced, not even built as what’s need, we have old Mumbai Pune highway, why not widen it & why spend so many thousand crores for a road of mere 100 km length & all such. Yet thanks to the then govt & our Roadkari Minister who is at present Union Minister, was State minister then, the Eway came into existence. And indeed, it was a big thing twenty-five years back when our most highways were in bad state & commuting via road was a nightmare. On such a background here is a highway, with no crossings, three special lanes for driving & you can drive at 100km per hour speed, was something unheard of & Eway was soon popular with travellers & so was it topped on the road accidents also, that too fatal! Again, there was hohallah over the making of Eway & its faulty design (which wasn’t the case) & it’s been called Death-Way also but frankly most of the accidents were the outcome of over speeding & not understanding driving on such roads! This driving licence system & commuters training for preparing them to drive on Eway is first lacuna of the entire transport system or say govt! As you can’t just blame drivers when they haven’t ever made to learn discipline while driving & even today such discipline teaching system is not in place on the Eway which is main cause of the chaos it caused. While entering on Eway all one has to do is pay Toll tax that’s all & you are through. Nobody checks eligibility or ability of the driver nor the vehicle is the first thing which we must start now. As most of the takers for super heavy vehicle driving needs far more skill than that of normal domestic vehicles but we don’t have any system which assures that skill checking. And because of the poor road conditions on other roads these super heavy vehicles don’t gather speed so overturning or such incidents are less but on roads like Eway sheer weight & volume of such vehicles becomes most risky if they gather speed! So, first & foremost form a checking system at least for super-heavy vehicles while they enter on Eway is a must thing! At the same time constant awareness programs drills along the Eway is a must with displays as even the smaller vehicles also need to follow discipline & not to do sharp lane cuttings causing sudden hurdles in the path of heavy vehicles which eventually skid or overturn by application of sudden breaks due to small vehicle’s entry in their lane!

Now, about the arrangements to avoid crisis or accidents as knowing our Indian mentality awareness is hardly taken seriously but use drone or on when squad to check the wrong doings on Eway & see that such vehicles are arrested at next tool gate or pulled down & fined heavily on the spot before they become a cause for accident! I have been travelling for nearly all the twenty-five years on Eway since it started but not once has my vehicle been stopped for such checking, which shows absence of any checking system, which is a must now! As, why wait for accidents to happen, when we know the cause in most cases, is my question! Accident is something which happens even after taking all the precautions & following rules but if that is not in place then its negligence or ignorance or even crime, which is happening at present on Eway! Here one aspect comes in picture, whose responsibility it is to maintain law & order on driving on Eway as numbers of crucks spoil the game so are here Highway police, RTO (pls google), Traffic Police & the company who has got contract of collecting toll & the govt itself & then we have Collectors & Police of nearly three Districts from where this Eway cut across. In the end, everybody just points fingers at others. Rather this highway police thing itself is needed to close down & let the local police manage their individual sections as per boundary of respective districts. At the same time, the sole single authority must be RTO, because the police are supposed to detect crime & not to stop accidents, in the entire world traffic police isn’t a special squad as they are there just to keep an eye on law offenders, to manage traffic & keep decline & check vehicles, is a job of RTO as well of traffic planners, so make them one point authority for anything on Eway & then held them responsible. Even the private toll company also must work under the RTO guidelines & if they fail to do so then hang concerned RTO team (not literally) as then at least we will have one single authority to deal with for RTO issues.

Now coming to improvisations needed to be made on Eway from construction angle & for this make a joint team of RTO, as well Highway Authorities & Traffic Planners, Traffic Activists (Tanmay Pendse for e.g.) & ask them to make a report about all civil improvisations needed to be done on Eway in one month maximum or sack the committee & make new one as this is not some rocket science but sheer common sense blended with engineering! At the same time, ask this committee members to travel as common commuters by Eway by all vehicles i.e. domestic, private, public & even by heavy vehicles also as then they will understand the problems commuters face, which VIPs’ doesn’t have to! There has to be removable central barricades after every 5 km so in case of jam we can allow vehicles to cross the opposite lanes & ease out the traffic as well the rescue vehicles can reach the accident or mishap spot in less time by using opposite lanes also, is the logic. As well make such cross exits in special colours as well with signages. The so-called Emergency Phone system along the Eway is a joke as they weren’t in use since the start but nobody cares then & nobody cares even now with cell phones in! But at least make a charging line available on both sides of Eway with charging points so it can be used to charge not just cell phones but batteries of E-vehicles which causes more problems to add on the traffic jam because of battery discharge! At the same time basic amenities like public toilets must be there along the Eway at every 10km & it’s a sorry state that we have to mention clean public toilets which are the basic needs of any commuter, especially women travellers! At the same time, I am sure all these things or a few of them must be in the contract of the company which collects the toll but who is monitoring it, again nobody knows, which is the main reason for the failure of infrastructure on Eway which got exposed when such a crisis happened!

Now about the action team in case of an accident or crisis or even natural disaster, again the same point there must be one single team responsible to take control & lead & this team must be known to all the segments, especially the commuters. Right now, the scene is, the person who is paying tax means the client of Eway was clueless to whom to contact for help, leaving away responsibility & this definitely isn’t a good sign of governance! At the same time with a budget of some thousand crores per year for contract of this road why can’t be there a helicopter available exclusively for the Eway surveillance as not just about keeping on eye but this can be used for lifting patients who has got caught in the traffic or even to make the team of specialists reach at crisis site such as propane tanker!

Finally, the govt as well as many others are busy blaming delay of the so-called missing link which is nothing but one more Eway portion & had that been in function this crisis could have been avoided & I defer on this! The main problem of Eway or any National or State highway is not road width (it is in some cases) or poor infrastructure but the numbers of vehicles which are increasing everyday & most of them are private vehicles along with heavy vehicles. And the sole reason is our govt’s worst planning for strengthening public transport for domestic travellers as well as commercial goods. Why can't the govt run every 10 mins public buses on expressway which will start from the outskirts of Pune & will drop commuters on the outskirts of Mumbai & from there local commuting public transport to central part of the respective cities, is a question which only the govt can answer! As there are only four trains (if I am not wrong) in morning & in evening dedicated to Pune Mumbai travel, make it twenty trains, as all such only can reduce the load on the Eway or else every five years you will have to find some more missing links & one day there will be nothing left to build but roads & still the vehicles will keep jamming those new found links also!

To conclude all I will say, imagine had this propane carrying tanker been overturned inside of any tunnel on the Eway or some vehicle had caught fire in the tunnel, that would have been a nightmare & planning is something which doesn’t wait for such nightmare to happen but prepares us to deal with the same in advance, is my purpose of sharing, adios with this note!

-

Sanjay Deshpande 

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked...

 

https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2025/12/pune-real-estate-in-2026.html

https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.html

Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

www.punecorporation.org

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com / https://junglebelles.in/

परंपरा, प्रतिष्ठा, अनुशासन; Union Budget 2026

 

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“Most people aren’t broken because of income—they’re broke because of ignorance.”

― Joseph C. Kunz Jr

“Find your values, align your vision, charge your passion, connect with your purpose & then make a Budget.”

― Sabrina M J Constantin

“My understanding about the Budget is, it’s about not how much I will earn but about how much I can spend”__ Me

 

Keeping due respect to financial wizards like Joseph Cruz & Sabrina Constantine, whose words rescued me to start the sharing about the budget (Union Budget or country’s budget), a subject which makes me sick, nervous (Just the Maths used to make me in my engg days)! Yet, budget is something which is the backbone of my work systems & long back when I started as a fresh trainee engineer, I have learned the importance of the term budget! Though the sharing is about country’s budget which is as complex as “Climate Change” yet everybody can have his or her own say about it & being a businessman by myself I too have mine, & when your journalist friend asks you to pen down your thoughts about it, I did dig a bit in the subject & I could actually make a quote about it, in my own words too, lol! Agreed, a budget is a complex thing, especially for an engineer who could barely read his own company’s balance sheet but then that’s the bitter fact about financial literacy of this country’s education system as managing money in the right way is the last thing they taught you in normal education! All our education is so much focused on only to earn money but how to utilize or manage that money nobody teaches you & here is where budget’s importance comes in the picture, is my main reason for sharing!

Ohk, coming to understanding of the budget which is like a yearly ritual of our country & its impact on the share market which often is emotional more & logical less! Keeping in tune with this tradition, on budget day the share market crashed by nearly 2000 pints (plz google for meaning) but in the next three days it again bounced back to level from where it crashed, & I think this means it has nothing to do with the budget, logic, right? When its real estate, I wonder why just Finance Minister, not even our local bodies give any damn to our industry, so where it’s a Development Plan or TDR policy, if the govt is not taking in to consideration the people in business (read as builders) how can you expect the same govt will take builder’s consultation in thing like budget! And the outcome is that this year’s budget directly doesn’t give anything to real estate, a plain & simple outcome by a common engineer builder like me! Yet I tried to decode some aspects of it for other fellow builders so we can at least raise our voice (whom I am fooling, anyways)!

 

Coming to my understanding (read as take away) of Budget 26, I remembered the famous dialogue from the Bachchan-SRK starrer Mohabbatein & in the movie SRK used to mock it as a strong building standing on a hollow foundation!! Same way for real estate or say housing, this budget talks big but stands on thin air. Here, the 3 pillars i.e. Parampara, Pratishtha, Anushasan, are replaced by 3 Kartawys i.e. Building Capacity of People, Fulfilling People's Aspirations & Subka Saath Subka Vikas concept! Great, but like in the another Bollywood hit Sholay, when Dharampaaji climbs on overhead water tank and shouts "good bye gaonwalo" on which one villager explains another villager, meaning of good bye saying, "jub angrej loag kahi jate hai tub wo goodbye bolte hai", on this the other villager asks, "par ye angrej loag jate kaha hai?", on that the first villager turns his face away for having no answer! Same way, my question is, who & where are these people, who supposedly focus on Hon FM in the budget 26!! Definitely, they are not from real estate for sure as in the provisions of lakhs of crores of rupees for AI, Production, Railways, Tourism, Public Health, Creative Content, Défense, Education & all such fronts, FM madam seems has forgotten all this employment as well existing people will need homes & has forgotten that there is an industry which makes these homes!! Many will say, direct or indirect ultimately its real estate which will get benefit as need for space will increase & half of that sentence is true but that's lifetimes truth as space will always be in demand but how those spaces are going to be made or created i.e. Real estate, what about it??

About some other provisions, individual tax limits are always an important aspect for buying home for salaried urban People & with no major elections ahead in Central India (read as Maharashtra) no concrete thing is there for this class which is client of real estate, so not even indirect benefit is there for real estate or housing!! Infrastructure provision is another weak link, as you will connect Pune Mumbai but what about traffic, water, drainage in these cities as well public transport within & outward to these cities?? Rare minerals, NRI investment limits, Smart Universities & Amrit Yojana for small towns infra, well, high time we must acknowledge Metro cities like Pune, Bengaluru as separate industries in itself & Growth Engines for which no direct provisions are made! Then let’s take in to account commuting between major cities which indeed is need for residents of these cities but just making high speed trains won’t achieve anything as take example of Pune -Nagpur route, there are eight railways on this route & all are full almost throughout the year, means we need to study the commuting volume & then increase the intensity (more rails) on the routes which has never happened, making people dependant of private vehicles of spend more for air travel! Rather we need new tracks, more trains, get over the age-old concept of one Up & one Down rail track system as why can’t we have four laned railway tracks, as it will save land acquisition also & will help in increasing the carrying capacity of the railways. But for such thoughts you need to take into account what is actually pinching to the people in the industry as we are year, nose, eyes of end users, just take us in confidence while making a budget, is my appeal to Hon FM!

 

As one main aspect of the budget as per FM madam is, EoD i.e. Ease of Doing Business but that's one of the vaguest (deceptive) tag lines, as what are concrete provisions for making that happen & for real estate, nothing on that! Rather on the very next day of Budget announcement Pune Municipal Corporation issued a circular saying hereafter to demolish existing buildings for development there will be a NOC to be obtained from PMC, means one more hurdle, so, where is Ease of Doing Business, is my question to Hon FM! And such there are hundreds of speed breakers, hurdles, or obstacles everywhere, need of obtaining a NA certificate even when your project is in a residential zone & weirdest is obtaining an NOC of mining for excavation of building foundations, just great! Joke is, Hon FM mentions Ease of Doing business but why can’t she order or make direct provisions which will make that ease thing happen, is another question to her!  Real estate needs policies, fund provision, priority finance, funding for purchasing land which is raw material, & GST reduction if you want to make Homes affordable, nothing on it!! And here the main problem is neither Hon FM nor any govt official (read as rulers) feel the need of taking the opinion of businessmen in account for this Budget thingy as they think they know it all & that’s our country’s biggest problem, especially for real estate! Take a simple example of construction material or infra items, with high rise buildings is a fact, we need a special type of shuttering made of Aluminium called as My One & which is made by a Korean company. This we all know from decades but nothing has been done to manufacture this shuttering material in our country as giving tax exemptions to the same, which will actually make construction cheaper & help in reducing home prices! There are thousands of such suggestions out of which 18% GST on labour contracts is also one weird thing as construction industry supports probably the maximum numbers of lower classes (financially) of the society & burdening this class with 18% GST is seriously wrong & that directly adds to the cost of home making, rather now a days even profit margins also are not that high in contracting; in nutshell, in any civil labour contract, the govt earns more than the contractor, if my understanding is wrong then I am sorry but my engineering logic says so!

Here one will say the govt earns through these taxes & use that money for infrastructure, but again speaking about real estate, Hon FM, please check the conditions local bodies put on the developer for any project! As right from providing water or drainage or road like basic facilities, for which again the local body (read as govt) charges to the builder, an undertaking is taken from the builder that all these will be provided by the builder only to the occupants! Wow, just wow, as if you call this as Ease of Doing Business then what it will be in your directory Normal Business, I just can’t imagine! And then again my basic question, about providing infra to the cities, why the budget doesn’t make it mandatory to the civic bodies to keep record & mandate for utilizing funds which has been allotted to them via budget & maintain transparency in the same, as if that money if for the citizens 9read as businessmen too) then we must be kept in loop as all these development are directly related to fate of real estate in respective region or city, right? As well why the Finance ministry doesn’t put local bodies under their scanner or have direct control on them when they allocate crores of budget money to these bodies as leave apart actual execution of infra projects the DPs’ of cities, towns, regions kept lingering for years & add to that weirdest policies related to ownership documents, revenue record lacunas, buying a land & developing it becomes game only for moneyed ones or the ones with muscle power & this is the reason of failure of making affordable homes for the needy ones which is main reason for illegal construction! All this can be stopped with just a little bit of openness of accepting suggestions from some sane minds in real estate which never happens & that’s why budget after budget real estate gets more disappointed only, is a fact! The way the govt keeps tab on wrong doings via ED, DRI & CBI, same way high time a special task force State wise to be created for monitoring progress of infra projects especially in cities which are being done under Central Govt funding as then only such budget provisions will help real estate!

 

And the biggest hurdle for a right (I am not saying good) budget for real estate is the misconception that real estate is like a gold mine & everybody always earns a lot more eventually! It was right a few years back but even Golden Egg laying hen also dries up if you cut her down (plz google for the phrase & its meaning) which has happened with real estate. Agreed a land is probably the only commodity which doesn’t have expiry date or depreciation concept but what about the person who has holding that land & trying to develop it, he can surely go bankrupt, right? And if you see today’s newspapers, most of their central pages are full with acquisition or auction notices of real estate assets by the banks as well as financial institutions, that’s the real indicator (read as mirror) of our economy which is directly related with budget! Last but least, about finance to the real estate industry, there are special loan rates for housing finance but no such for the builder is the biggest joke regarding policies of FM towards real estate & yet we expect the homes to become affordable, just wow! To add there are policies like no GST for ready possession homes means to make people wait till the project gets completed making it costlier with the interest cost! I wonder if a layman like me can understand or see these hurdles in real estate, why can’t Hon FM & her team see it, is all I can say! If we really want to make homes affordable to all then the way hon FM has made provision to create a committee for improvements in banking, please make one such committee under herself or Hon PM for real estate or else every day millions of people sleep in homes which they don’t own but to wish to own someday, will remain a dram only for them!

To conclude about Union Budget 2026 from real estate’s view, I think we should change name of "Real" Estate to "Subka Real Estate” as then only we can have some hope for the real estate going by the tag line, i.e. “Subka" Sath "Subka" Vikas (I know it’s a PJ but that’s all I can think for now)..!!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked...

 

https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2025/12/pune-real-estate-in-2026.html

https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.html

Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

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