RERA Implementation Challenges in Rural Jammu and Kashmir
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA) was enacted with a clear and unambiguous intent: to bring transparency, accountability, and discipline to the real estate sector, protect homebuyers’ interests, and ensure planned urban and rural development. However, the ground reality in the rural areas of Jammu and Kashmir reveals a troubling disconnect between intent and implementation. The continuing mushrooming of unregulated colonies, despite the existence of RERA, exposes serious institutional gaps that threaten both public interest and the credibility of the regulatory framework.
The problem lies with the failure to ensure mandatory registration and effective regulation of colonies, particularly in rural belts. RERA mandates compulsory registration of real estate projects precisely to prevent haphazard development, misleading practices, and exploitation of buyers. Yet, in rural Jammu and Kashmir, developers are caught in a regulatory vacuum due to the absence of a designated authority for layout approvals. When no authority is clearly empowered to grant approvals, compliance becomes practically impossible. This ambiguity does not just inconvenience developers; it directly fuels illegal colonies, leaving ordinary citizens vulnerable to legal, financial, and infrastructural risks.
Mandatory registration under RERA should function as a preventive mechanism, not a procedural bottleneck. Its purpose is to scrutinize projects for violations, ensure adherence to planning norms, and safeguard buyers’ investments. Unfortunately, in the current scenario, registration itself is stalled because there is no clarity on rural layouts. If neither the developer nor the regulator has a clear picture of how rural colonies are to be planned and approved, the entire regulatory chain collapses. This raises a fundamental question: how can RERA be enforced when its foundational requirements remain undefined?
The problem is compounded by the involvement of multiple departments—Revenue, Town Planning, Rural Development, Housing, Forest, Power Development, and Public Health Engineering—each operating in silos. In the absence of a central or mediatory authority, approvals become time-consuming, unpredictable, and often discouraging. Past experience has shown that when accountability is diffused across departments, files move slowly, decisions are delayed, and violations multiply. A Single Window System, as recommended by JKRERA, is not a luxury but a necessity if the Government is serious about regulating colonies and checking illegal growth.
Ironically, Jammu and Kashmir is often cited as a national leader in e-governance. In this digital age, there is no justification for a cumbersome and opaque registration process under RERA. The registration mechanism should be online, time-bound, transparent, and user-friendly, enabling both developers and regulators to track applications and approvals in real-time. If e-governance can streamline land records, service delivery, and public grievance redressal, it can certainly be leveraged to make RERA registration efficient and credible.
Another critical dimension is the Government’s perception of private developers. Rather than viewing them with suspicion, the administration must recognize that private developers are an extended arm of the Government’s effort to bridge the housing gap. Every unnecessary delay in approvals widens the demand-supply mismatch, pushing affordable housing further out of reach for common citizens. When compliant developers are discouraged, non-compliant players thrive, leading to precisely the kind of disorder RERA was meant to eliminate.
Equally worrying is the lack of dedicated RERA cells in several district administrations. These cells were envisaged as ground-level watchdogs to monitor violations, illegal colonies, and misleading advertisements. Their absence weakens enforcement and sends a message that violations can continue with impunity. Piecemeal efforts—sporadic notices, partial rule amendments, or selective enforcement—have repeatedly failed in the past and will continue to do so.
What is needed is a comprehensive and time-bound approach. The Government must urgently designate a competent authority for rural layout approvals, operationalize a Single Window System, and ensure full digitization of RERA processes. Just as importantly, it should convene structured consultations with developers and other stakeholders to incorporate practical feedback and remove avoidable hurdles. No Government notification serves any purpose unless it is implemented in full compliance with its letter and spirit. Planned and scientific development of Jammu and Kashmir demands clarity, coordination, and commitment. An early resolution of the current impasse is not just desirable—it is essential to safeguard public interest, restore faith in regulation, and ensure sustainable growth across both urban and rural landscapes of the UT.
