Realtors body urges state to get stay on registrations lifted

The FAIRAA has also urged the government to introduce norms to regularise the existing unapproved layouts, plots and buildings. 

“The interim order of the Madras High Court issued on September 9 to restrain registration of unauthorised layouts, plots and buildings in Tamil Nadu has affected realtors, government and the public too,” said president of the federation A. Henry in a consultative meeting in Coimbatore on Tuesday. The meeting was called to discuss the impact of the court order and to get the government’s attention on the issue. 

“While the court direction is aimed at preventing development of unauthorised layouts and conversion of agricultural lands for other purposes,” Henry said that the categorisation of land based on utility has not been updated for over 25 years. 

He said the order has made it impossible for the middle class and the lower middle class who own such properties in unapproved layouts to sell it in case of an emergency. 

Henry said that the registration department that is the second highest revenue generating government department is hit by the drop in the number of registrations. Moreover, lakhs of realtors who have invested crores of rupees in these projects are also directly affected by the interim order.

Livelihood of real estate agents, construction workers and those employed in the allied industries are affected. Large number of migrant workers engaged in construction projects are also hit by the interim order, he said.

They suggested that government should form committees comprising officials from all the government departments to categorise land into dry and wet agricultural land. They added that the state should then facilitate approval of the dry lands where no cultivation has been carried out for more than three years into housing sites. 

The realtors said that this would also help farmers who could not cultivate in those lands. They suggested a single window system for transparency and ease in getting land utility approved. 

To help them at such tough times the federation asked the government to reduce the guideline value of housing sites.