More than 6 lakh houses have failed to meet the delivery schedule in the National Capital Region (NGR), with nearly 2 lakh homes late for delivery by more than two years, according to data compiled by Liases Forras — a real-estate rating and research firm.
Most of the delayed houses in the NCR are in Noida, Greater Noida and Gurgaon. While NCR is the top among 43 cities where such deliveries are stalled, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region is second: 1.31 lakh houses are delayed here by more than two years, the Times of India reported.
According to the research firm's data, one in three houses gets delayed by more than two years in the NCR and one in four in the Mumbai region.
Also, around 29.23 lakh houses under construction are delayed and over 50 percent of these are delayed by at least one year or more, according to the data.
Besides the NCR and Mumbai, homebuyers even in Chennai, Pune and Bengaluru are facing delays in house delivery by more than two years.
This analysis comes at a time when real-estate companies are pushing hard to finish incomplete projects with tougher rules under the Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA).
The housing ministry has enforced the Act to make sure lakhs of people who have bought houses with their life savings but are still waiting for their houses are protected.
"The law was brought to protect affected buyers and for future buyers. That's why RERA does not differentiate between incomplete and new projects. The Centre has submitted its view on this to the Bombay High Court," a government official said.
Despite this law, real-estate firms such as Unitech, Jaypee Infratech and Amrapalli are being pursued by banks and homebuyers who had paid them advance but not received their houses, and have since turned to courts for recourse.
They fear that they would lose out in case of liquidation because then the home buyers' claims would be considered only after those of secured creditors like the banks have been settled.
"The present situation has been the fallout of an investor-driven market, more commitment by the developers rather than what they could deliver and its arbitrary regulatory intervention such as stopping all construction activities in certain areas," said Pankaj Kapoor, managing director of Liases Foras.
Earlier this year, reports also suggested that as many as 826 residential projects in the country were facing delays extending to four years. Of the 2,300-odd under-construction projects in December 2016, 826 residential and 60 commercial projects were facing substantial delays.
Sources in the housing ministry said they have now sought the details of delayed projects from each state.
