Amrapali Group homebuyers, experts find loopholes in NBCC suggestions

Permutations and combinations suggested by National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) in its report to Supreme Court might not work for homebuyers of Amrapali Group. Experts and homebuyers fear that NBCC’s roadmap depends on a lot of variables, which might not happen. 

According to sources, NBCC said that roughly Rs 85 billion would be required to complete the 15 projects of Amrapali Group constituting of around 46,575 units. To cover part of the costs, the construction public sector unit (PSU) plans to sell 4,885 unsold inventory for around Rs 26 billion, and ask the homebuyers to pay the remaining for the units they had bought, whose collective value is around Rs 38.5 billion. 

However, homebuyers and experts fear that the plan has a lot of moving parts to be successfully initiated. Also, NBCC has not yet clearly said if it would provide Rs 10 billion required to start the completion and refurbishing process. 

“There are multiple problems with this plan. For one, upfront Rs 10 billion is needed to start the process of construction and refurbishing the finished houses. We are not sure if NBCC is ready to put that kind of capital or not,” said Abhishek Kumar, president of Noida Extension Flat Owners Welfare Association (NEFOWA). 

Sources also said NBCC was relying on getting a chunk of the capital from selling the unsold inventory, which in the present real estate scenario in Delhi-NCR seems extremely difficult. “Amrapali is the reason that the whole Delhi-NCR real estate market went for a toss. The projects have earned such a bad repute that it would be extremely difficult to convince anyone for buy these flats. Selling at a premium is anyway out of question,” said Jay Prakash Gupta, another homebuyer. 

Also, even if homeowners are ready to pay the remainder sum, their banks are not agreeing to disburse it. Banks had stopped disbursing the money to the project soon after the controversy around Amrapali Group started. Experts believe it would require NBCC having discussions with all banking stakeholders and ensuring that things are back on track. No one from NBCC was available for comment. 

“At this moment anything on those lines might not happen. These things require a lot of preparations and all banks need to be on board. All this would require at least a couple of months. Which means work would definitely get delayed,” said a senior official of the urban development ministry.

 With so much of uncertainty around the fate of the projects, homebuyers are planning to launch a massive protest on December 14 and walk to the Parliament. The protest would coincide with the Winter Session of the Parliament.

“The government needs to take our problems seriously. We will hold a protest next month. If a PSU is looking at the issue, the government needs to back it and fund the initial capital to start the construction process,” said Kumar.