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“You have to work on the business first
before it works for you.”... Idowu Koyenikan
As an internationally recognized
consultant, Idowu helps individuals and organizations break
through to new levels. He has been featured in most of the business media &
his many inspiring quotes have been guiding the business fraternity &
needless to say he is from the USA, a country which runs on sheer business
mentality! And when it comes to our country with all respect to the few
good people in the system (there are some such yet) the term “business” is only
been in the phrase "mind your business"! Well, sarcasm &
loads of it but when someone asks you to share what you think about ease of
doing business in this country & about the industry you are in, well
unfortunately sarcasm is the only way I start & I am sorry but I
am not the only one who think like that!
Ok, recently to my surprise I got
connected with one friend of mine & due to whom I am more surprised to know
that our "Mai Baap" Govt is seriously trying to know what are the
hurdles for real estate industry & will like to know how this industry
can be smoothened on the front of doing business i.e. ease of doing
business in real estate which I will nickname as EODB hereafter for ease of
writing, lol, agreed that was a PJ & bad PJ but so is real estate! So, let’s
know about what is pinching to the real estate & no wonder the pinch is
none other than the money which it used to generate & which of late has
been dried up! Very frankly
neither the system (read as govt) nor the masses or say society never used to
consider real estate as a business or an industry in the first place & the
people in the real estate (read as builders mostly, though it’s not just
builders) never used to bother because of the money it was making for them (read
as all). And why not as
any business's main intention is make some money, isn’t it & here was a
business was making money for every person linked with it, right from the govt
to vendors to financers (investors) to builders to raw material provider i.e.
land & the end users i.e. home buyers (early birds I meant), so who has got
time to complain about the hurdles the business has been facing! I am very clear about one thing, any job
never makes you stressful or pinch only if your are genuinely liking that
job which we call job satisfaction or the job is making enough money for you to
fulfil your all needs & I don’t know about job satisfaction but later
aspect was definitely there in the real estate! So, when everything is
going good nobody bothers or cares to dig in for innovation or improvisation
& we are famous for that that’s why not many wise minds are there in real
estate, as what was going on, was a gamble actually! Well, many (read as most)
people especially fellow developers won’t agree with my statement but then no
gambler ever accepts that his earnings were outcome of luck, he (or she) always
thinks he earned it because of his skills, wisdom or intelligence, whatever you
call it. Indeed, some skill is required even for gambling but best gambler is
the one who knows when to quit gambling & that understanding needs wisdom
which is most "kamjor kadi" of real estate & outcome was though
on the face nobody (read as govt) used to called real estate as gambling
business but the treatment given by the govt as well the society(including
media) to the real estate says what it things of a gambling business & that’s
why we are in the situation which a gambler hates to face i.e. what if your
luck run out?
And that’s why including govt, banks, financers,
investors & all allied segments with the real estate, yes of
course the builders too, have realized the need of EODB, as no more the
luck factor is in favour to earn money out of this business! That way real
estate was always a hard & tough & mean business because its raw
product is land which is limited just like the gold & no science can create
new land unless you learn to live on Mars or Moon which isn’t the case as of
now so all you have is land which is available by nature & its decreasing i.e.
available land for development. And obviously everything related to the
land is complicated in the best possible way, right from 7/12 extract which is
"sim sim" word for any land to the demarcation (mojani) maps of the
land, all is a mess. And the mess
has been deliberately created as if the land means key to the money then the
system or person or authority that holds this key will make money by using the
key & even the govt is no exception for this greed! First thing to make EOB
in real estate is, wipe out old land or say revenue laws & the system
defining ownership of any piece of the land on paper as well on ground, so it
will reduce the time-lag (which is title of the land i.e.
ownership proving of any land) causes in the real estate business! Just tell me one thing if any document
unless registered with registrar, is considered as illegal then how any civil
court in the country accepts claims made on just a plain paper deal or stamp
paper or even notarized & how once a deal get registered even after then
title of some land can be challenged? This single aspect of the land deals has
increased stresses both mental & financial in the real estate business in
worst possible way & high time to deal with it for the govt! (If it wants
to!).
Once you are done
with the land ownership front then the next stage is getting permissions for
the development & they are bigger, lengthier & heavier than
"Hanumanji's Punchh", sorry a phrase in Hindi & can’t
be translated in English but take it as Herculean task! Because the number of govt departments (I
call them, Sharks) involved in getting a plan sanctioned for even a bungalow
are too many, that the normal developer which we can call as a common man
surrenders to the system & either leaves the thought of development or give
it to the builder, which knows how to swim in the ocean full of sharks! This is
why so called corruption never ends here & I am not talking about
corruption in the form of money but in the form of mental as well physical harassment
which is at all levels in real estate. Here, a govt officer can harass you over
implementing some policy as well a bank officer can harass you for sanctioning
your home loan or an RTI activist can harass you for hiding something in the
sanction which you can’t ever fulfil but accepted as there is no alternative, a
neighbour of your building can harass you for not allowing work during his
or her noon sleep hours & lastly police can arrest you for anything related
to the site even a genuine accident & put you behind the bars like a
street criminal! All this is possible because there is no alternative to
revenue officer who is supposed to sign your NA order, there is no alternative
to some building inspector who is supposed to sign on your plans & there is
no alternative to the bank manager who approves your home loan sanction file
& the list goes on for every NOC from every dept, you have ever heard of! If you want to get
EODB (ease of doing business) for real estate then streamline the entire
process of land records & sanctioning, taking away the monopoly of every
govt & semi govt dept which squeezes all the blood, sweat & money from
the real estate! If you
think I am exaggerating then look at real estate in just one city, our Smart
Pune & you will find right from Metro Rail’s TOD or TDR (whatever) to
granting FSI on 6m wide roads to charging premium for road handing over to
giving two FSI for road acquisition in PMRDA just in Pune region there are five
sanctioning authorities which have different set of rules & oh yes there
are other agencies like Defence which also interferes in the policies (height
NOC) or DC rules in these all five local bodies & then there is ULC,
revenue & irrigation , thanks god the AIDS control dept (yes there is one
such still) hasn’t yet intervened in real estate sanction processes!
Ok, if you are done with sanctioning authority’s
hurdles then there is the main & most vital aspect i.e. finance! Joke is
every financial or banking institute has home loan wing which is happy to give
loan to flat holders but to finance real estate i.e. builder is non-priority
segment which in hidden words is No Finance industry of business! And if at you
get to convince some banker for funding real estate then rate of interest is
like this industry works on double profit (well that was the case) & you
have to give equal amount collateral that of loan & with all this burden of
finance the builder is supposed to sell at affordable price his product i.e.
the home!
And last but not least is about the policy
making process related to real estate & the delay it takes always, classic
example is Unified Development Control Rules, which took more than five years
to see the sunlight, making delay to thousands of the projects all across the
city & State! As well, if the govt can make MIDC’s for ease of all other industries
where every basic infrastructure like water, roads, power, transportation is
available in proper way & cheaper rate then why can’t all such be made
available for cities in proper time span as land is raw material for real
estate & a land without infrastructure is as useless as an industry without
raw material! At the same time
policies regarding illegal constructions which is cancer for real estate must
be decided & acted up fast, who has stopped govt doing that but we all know
the reasons for turning a blind eye towards illegal constructions!
Finally all I will share is any business is risk & we are not talking about the risks here but the hurdles, which we only have created. It’s like we want to make an expressway for faster travel & we only build speed breakers on that expressway for speed reduction & then crying over the delay for travel on it; for govt’s approach to EODB (ease of doing business) regarding the real estate; I couldn’t have given better example, isn’t it!
Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
Please view
my sharing about real estate in Pune at U-Tube link below..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xX7eopH5o&t=5s
Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at
Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)
https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-good-home-is-good-deal.html
http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/
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
Take
your issues to Hon PM at link below..
Think Green, Think Life
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