I remember the pre-RERA property market well enough to be suspicious when somebody describes it as a golden age. It was golden chiefly for the people collecting booking amounts against brochures, changing plans after the sale and treating possession dates as a genre of speculative fiction. Buyers were expected to hand over their savings, begin paying interest and remain grateful for periodic photographs of construction equipment. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act did not abolish every abuse, but it changed the legal presumption. A developer now had disclosure obligations, projects entered a regulatory framework and buyers acquired a forum designed specifically for their grievance. That was a serious reform by Narendra Modi’s government, and Congress-era nostalgia cannot wish away the disorder it inherited. Yet an honest supporter of reform must also say what complacent defenders will not: a law that produces orders without compliance eventually becomes another waiting room. A homebuyer does not live inside a registration number.
The reform changed the balance, even if it did not finish the job
The current criticism deserves to be read without partisan reflex. A homebuyers’ group marked the law’s tenth year by arguing that registration cannot be the sole measure of success and that delayed projects, weak scrutiny and unenforced compensation orders remain widespread. The concerns were summarised in this report on the continuing struggle for homes and refunds. I would not accept every estimate advanced by an advocacy group as holy writ, but its central test is plainly correct. The state cannot say justice has been delivered merely because an authority typed an order. If the buyer still pays rent and an EMI while the promoter carries on with new projects, the paperwork has become theatre.
That does not make RERA a failure. It makes it an unfinished reform. Before the Act, transparency was frequently whatever a sales office chose to put in a glossy folder. RERA brought project information, declared timelines, escrow-related discipline and standardised rights into public law. It also gave buyers a vocabulary with which to challenge delay. The fact that citizens now complain about whether regulators enforce statutory rights is itself evidence that statutory rights exist. Critics often compare the imperfect present with an imaginary past in which every flat arrived on time and every state consumer forum moved briskly. I prefer comparisons with reality. The government deserves credit for creating the architecture; it now bears responsibility for repairing the plumbing.
The most important weakness is federal variation. Parliament enacted the framework, but state authorities determine much of the daily experience. Some publish useful project information and move complaints; others resemble retirement homes for files. The Union government cannot simply commandeer state institutions, nor should it. It can, however, publish a serious national performance dashboard: median time to decide complaints, percentage of orders complied with, recovery certificates pending, delayed projects, repeat-defaulting promoters and vacancies in regulatory posts. The official RERA portal maintained by the housing ministry already reflects the national framework. It should evolve from a doorway into an instrument of competitive federal accountability.
An order must become money, possession or consequence
The enforcement problem is not intellectually complicated. When a regulator orders a refund or interest, the buyer should not have to begin a second pilgrimage through revenue offices. Recovery must be digitally tracked from the date of the order, with a deadline, a named responsible officer and automatic escalation. Promoters with old, unsatisfied orders should face meaningful restrictions before receiving fresh registrations. That is not anti-business. A market in which reliable firms compete against habitual defaulters is anti-business. Good developers pay a reputational and financing penalty when regulators allow the worst operators to recycle buyer money and return under new project names.
I would also separate promotion from protection more clearly. Governments understandably want construction, employment and urban investment. A buyer-protection regulator, however, cannot begin each hearing worried that stern enforcement may spoil the sector’s mood. Housing policy can promote supply; RERA authorities should enforce declared obligations. The two goals are compatible only when the institutional roles are clear. Banks do not strengthen finance by pretending defaults are repayments. Property regulators do not strengthen housing by translating every breach into an extension.
The government should resist the fashionable solution of inventing a new authority whenever an existing authority disappoints. India has no shortage of seals, portals and letterheads. It has a shortage of consequences that arrive on schedule. The next RERA reform should therefore be operational rather than ornamental: interoperable case records, standard order formats, auditable recovery data, project-level alerts for buyers and annual state rankings verified by independent audits. Parliament may need to amend the Act where enforcement powers are ambiguous, but much can be achieved through rules, model procedures and political pressure on states.
There is also a judicial dimension. Litigation cannot become the default strategy for exhausting a middle-class buyer. Appeals are legitimate; endless procedural relays are not. A promoter seeking a stay against a monetary order should ordinarily deposit a meaningful portion of the amount, and appellate benches should publish disposal timelines. The principle is simple: delay must not be cheaper than compliance. Today, a financially sophisticated developer can sometimes treat legal delay as part of project finance. That incentive must be reversed.
Congress cannot plausibly pose as the discoverer of homebuyer rights
The opposition will naturally use the anniversary to pronounce the law dead. Congress should be careful with that line. The disorder RERA confronted did not materialise in May 2014. Urban India had spent years watching politically connected real-estate ecosystems expand while consumer remedies lagged behind. Congress governments had ample time to create a strong national framework. The Modi government enacted one. There is a difference between criticising shortcomings in implementation and rewriting the authorship of reform.
Still, BJP supporters should not answer every complaint with a history lesson. A family awaiting a flat cannot sleep inside a comparative chart of UPA and NDA performance. If the government’s case is that it governs better, it must improve the institution it created. The best political answer to criticism is not a spokesperson saying that more projects are registered. It is a buyer receiving possession, a refund landing in an account or a defaulting promoter discovering that non-compliance blocks the next launch.
I would like the housing ministry to convene a public, time-bound RERA repair exercise involving buyers, credible developers, state regulators, lenders and insolvency experts. Public consultations should publish proposals and objections rather than stage a ceremonial conference. The resulting reform package should address stalled projects as a distinct problem. Some are cases of misconduct; others became financially unviable because of litigation, financing shocks or defective approvals. Treating every stalled project identically helps nobody. Viable projects need completion finance and accountable resolution; dishonest diversion needs penalties and recovery.
Data quality matters here. Numbers circulated by trade bodies or campaign groups are often built from different definitions of delay, affected families and trapped capital. The government should neither dismiss uncomfortable estimates nor adopt them for drama. It should publish project-level, machine-readable information that allows researchers to reproduce national totals. Reform gains credibility when outsiders can test the government’s claims. A confident administration should welcome that discipline.
The pro-reform position is to demand a second act
There is a strange habit in Indian politics of treating laws as monuments. Once enacted, a flagship statute becomes a sacred object for its authors and a permanent fraud for its opponents. Both attitudes are lazy. Serious governance is iterative. Insolvency rules have been amended because experience exposed loopholes. GST procedures have changed because compliance design met reality. RERA should be no different. Correcting enforcement weaknesses would validate the original reform, not repudiate it.
I remain firmly on the government’s side about the historical significance of RERA. It brought a notoriously opaque sector into a national accountability framework and altered what buyers could reasonably demand. But political credit is not a fixed deposit that earns interest regardless of performance. The Modi government should spend its accumulated credibility on a tougher second phase: transparent state scorecards, fast recovery, scrutiny of repeat defaulters, cleaner appellate processes and practical rescue mechanisms for viable stalled projects.
The opposition would prefer a simpler story in which nothing changed until its latest press conference. Government cheerleaders would prefer an equally simple story in which registration proves success. I reject both. RERA was a major reform, its uneven implementation is now undeniable, and the people best placed to fix it are those who had the political will to create it. Ten years is not a reason to hold a funeral. It is enough time to stop accepting excuses.
