Bhubaneswar: To strengthen the functionality of Odisha Real Estate Regulatory Authority (ORERA), the housing and urban development department, after assigning specific tasks to various agencies and govt departments with timelines, has asked them to submit action taken reports on the same.In a letter to the departments and agencies concerned, Satish Chandra Singh, joint secretary (housing and urban development department), stated that a high-level meeting under the chairmanship of the chief secretary was held on June 17 to discuss the implementation of the RERA Act, 2016. “In this connection, the chief secretary will conduct a review meeting very shortly. It is requested to kindly take necessary action as per the discussions and decisions in the first meeting and furnish action taken reports to the department at the earliest,” Singh said.The action taken reports were sought from the revenue and disaster management department, the general administration department, the town planning division of the housing and urban development department and ORERA itself.According to the assignments, the town planning division was asked to make sure that the status of all project approvals is intimated to ORERA on time. For this, the division was asked to prepare a digital tool for real-time data sharing. The division was given 60 days to complete the task.Similarly, the revenue and disaster management department was asked to constitute a technical group to plan and implement the integration of ORERA 2.0 with the Bhulekh portal. The team will also work to give access to the SUJOG portal to get the list of approved real estate projects.The housing and urban development department itself was tasked with issuing instructions to the respective urban local bodies to deploy their enforcement squad with the ORERA for the execution of orders under the Orissa Demands Recovery Act,1962.On June 5, ORERA had requested the chief secretary, Manoj Ahuja, to consider an eight-point recommendation it made to strengthen the implementation of RERA Act in Odisha. Following the recommendation, the chief secretary held a review meeting on June 17 and issued specific tasks to specific teams.“Proper implementation of the RERA Act is necessary to safeguard homebuyers and regulate the real estate sector. Earlier, there was a monopoly of the developers and agents, but now things are changing and it should improve further,” homebuyer Vikrant Swain said.
