PUNE: Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) chairman Gautam Chatterjee has reiterated that no extension would be given for registration of ongoing projects beyond July 31and accountability would be a priority.

He urged developers to speed up the registration process, which, he said, will bring in transparency in the sector and bring down prices as there will be no hidden cost. Registration will also bring in discipline in the sector, he stated.

"It will make things easy and there is nothing to fear for those who follow the law and with the correct cost consumers will invest more in projects and this could eventually bring down prices,'' Chatterjee said while speaking on the sidelines of a workshop on RERA organised by the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) to encourage developers to register with RERA. "Whether it is the developer or the consumer or the local body , they can contact RERA and I assure you that the guilty will be held responsible and penalties will be levied according to the rules if a complaint is registered,'' he said.

With just about 20 registrations and about 44 projects lined up for registration, of which 42 are ongoing projects, the pace of registration has been slow but Chatterjee said this was because the developers were cautious as they had to put up their projects and even their work in the public domain. "There were some technical issues which were sorted out and registrations are slowly picking up. I have been assured by Credai that the registrations will pick up by month end. Currently , there are appli cations for nearly 44 projects, of which 20 have been cleared and the remaining will be processed. The number of real estate agents' registration has also touched 1,000," he said.

He also emphasized on the time-bound programme of delivering permissions from local bodies, which will result in accountability and ensure that the Right to Services Act is implemented. "If the time-bound programme is followed it will only increase transparency and efficacy,'' he pointed out.

After the 90-day period, those who fail to register will be considered delinquent and face severe action, he said, ad ding that a suo motu action was taken against a real estate agent recently for advertising wrongly to send across a message to the fraternity that they should not take things for granted.

Builder representatives from Credai Maharashtra Shantilal Kataria and Pune Credai president Shrikant Paranjape said that they will encourage all their members to register before the month end."We will have a help desk facility at our offices and conduct workshop for our members," said Kataria.

Meanwhile, when asked about whether RERA imple mentation will bring down prices, they replied that with increasing cost to be borne by the developers it is highly unlikely that the costs will go down, they stated.

While the present operations of RERA authority will be from Mumbai, Chatterjee assured that Pune and Nagpur offices will be opened soon so that people can have their cases addressed in the same city as there is no limit on the number of offices for implementing MahaRERA. He expressed satisfaction on the implementation of RERA in the state as against other states which, he said, were lagging far behind.