All CREDAI Belagavi Member builders closed their offices, construction sites and did not register any agreements or sale deeds in protest of the government harassment which led to the untimely demise of Mr Suraj Parmar, President of THANE CREDAI MCHI.
On October 7, Parmar, CMD of the Cosmos Group, “shot himself dead” as he was fed up of alleged harassment from various government departments and their repeated demands for bribes, the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (Credai) said in a statement.
Mr. Qais Noorani, President of CREDAI Belagavi, while addressing the media explained that Mr Parmar committed sucide not because of debt, but because of harassment and unreseonable demamd of bribes from politicians and local authorities. Hon Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s dream of HOUSING FOR ALL by 2020 cannot be fulfilled without builders. Instead of encouraging developers to build affordable housing by giving tax breaks, the officials are treating them like criminals and ATM machines. The only way to minimize corruption in the system is to introduce single window system for clearance of files and online submisiion and software verification of building permissions.
Developers have to take around 54-60 approvals and permissions before starting a project and each approval necessitates dealing with a number of government authorities.
“This entire process takes about 2-3 years resulting in the projects suffering with cost overrun and avoidable delays to the consuming public. Credai has consistently sought rationalisation of approval processes and single-window system and the demand has been approved in principle by a number of committees. However, action is yet to be seen,” it said.
Credai and its over 10,000 members will also appeal to the state government to develop an atmosphere of trust that will enable a spirit of partnership, to ensure that that such episodes never recur and the ‘ease of doing business’ can become a reality, it added
Around 500 Developers and staff took out a march from Rani Chenemma Circle to DC office and handed over a memorandum to the CHIEF Ministers of Karnataka and Maharastra, the Governor of Karnataka and the local body commissioners.
The developers also held a meeting with the Commissioner of City Corporation of Belgaum and explained their stand and instated that a single window system be implemented immediately and the middle men be weeded out of the system.