Vimal Oberoi, a 76 year old lady, had invested to book a flat in 2010 in a Reputed Realty Firm, owing to its brand name. She had shown a great amount of trust in the brand name as the 15 out of 17 buildings had been already built. Presently, in 2017, she is 83 years old and yet to get the booked 2BHK flat.

The old lady had saved everything she had to invest in this flat. Her plan was to get give out that residential property on rent so that she doesn’t face any kind of financial trouble in her old age. But now, unfortunately, she has got nothing out of that investment and is living with her son in Gurgaon.

Vimal, who had a family property in east Delhi, had sold off that property to buy this flat. But now she lost the single source of income which she had expected in her old age.

The last installment paid by Vimal was in October 2015, after which she was given the guarantee of the delivery of the flat within 45 days. But, it became very common for various real estate firms in NCR to delay the deliveries of flats owing to the unavoidable circumstances. The real estate firms witnessed very dull response which could not keep pace with the high investments made in the initial years.

The downfall in the real estate market increased even further after the act of demonetization. The flat which Vimal had booked, still doesn’t have its electric wiring in place. When she pointed this out, she was asked to pay an amount of Rs.7 lakhs to get the flat completed.

Worried with the insights of financial troubles, Vimal recently visited the developer’s office where she was asked to mail the owners of the real estate firm. She hasn’t got any revert on that mail yet. She was even advised to file a case but that won’t be of any use as it will get pushed between various other pending cases.

According to the sources, the developer is working towards the completion of the Vimal Oberoi’s flat which will be handed over to her in a couple of months, that is, likely in June 2017.

There are so many people like Mrs. Vimal Oberoi, who had invested all they had in a wish to buy a house of their own. But sadly, due to the slump in the realty market, both- the developers and homebuyers are suffering and are helpless.

However, as the experts predict an improvement in the real estate sector in a few months, we hope for the best for these people.

The new residential launches in the top eight cities have witnessed a decline of 14% year-on-year on their ticket size. This came as a repercussion to many developers carefully modifying their marketing strategies. These new strategies involved a decrease in the cost of their properties and restraining the new residential launches to curb their stock holding.

According to the sources, the new housing units saw a decline in the year by 11% which makes around 113000 units. 56% of the total unit launches was covered by mid housing segments and value housing segments accounted for 32%. If we consider on the year-to-year basis, there was an increase of about 22% in the value housing segment.

However, the segment highly affected was the high-end one. High-end segment witnessed the launches coming to half, that is, just 12000 units during the whole year.
As a result, most of the developers are seeking to control the ticket sizes, specifically in the most-affected luxury and high-end segments.

The government has shown great amount of flexibility in its efforts reach the goal of Housing for All by 2022. It is also making efforts for developers to be at an advantage in this vision, so that they show maximum participation. After demonetization, realty markets had witnessed a slump, which made homebuyers lose all the trust they had in the market.

And therefore, developers are working on their strategies to attract homebuyers so that they can develop trust in the real estate market again.

Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation and the consultant firm to it have given out a new smart city proposal for Ghaziabad worth Rs.2200 crore.

This proposal will have to be submitted to the Central Government for the next step of ‘Smart City’ scheme by latest 31st march.

Initially, this proposal will be prepared and submitted to the nodal agency of Uttar Pradesh, Regional Center for Urban and Environmental Study. After it is approved from there, the proposal will be analyzed and scrutinized by a high-power committee. After modifications, if any required, the proposal will be sent to the Central Government. Ghaziabad will be participating in the Smart City competition for the third time.

The areas which will be included in the area based development plan will be Vasundhra, Vaishali, vegetable market of Sahibabad and various portions of Site-4 Industrial area. These areas will witness various developments like underground parking, underground cabling, unloading facilities for trucks, etc.

The previous plan has been modified by the Ghaziabad municipal corporation and the new plan will have meticulous traffic system and camera surveillance. Apart from this, cycle lanes, facilities for e-bicycles and organized footpaths are part of this new proposal.

Ghaziabad, a long-lived city, has some areas which are very old and therefore hold heritage significance. The officials had planned to redevelop those old areas but later, the plan was cancelled and instead, areas of Vaishali and Vasundhra were included.

Under this competition of Smart City, various cities will be analyzed and assessed on important factors. The ones which get selected after the review will be granted funds for development. Unfortunately, Ghaziabad was not able to clear the previous two rounds with its proposal.

From the state of Uttar Pradesh, Agra, Varanasi and Kanpur are the only cities which have been selected among the 27 cities to receive funds under the plan.

Finally, the people of Ghaziabad can breathe in relief as the Automatic Ambient Air Quality Monitoring System has finally become operational. With the activation of this new service, the Pollution Board of Ghaziabad will now be able to record and assess pollution data on over 10 parameters.

The system has been installed in the office of Vasundhra, with a cost of Rs.1.5 crore, which was shared between the Central Government and the State Government. With the installation of this automatic air quality monitoring system, Ghaziabad becomes the third district in the state who can flaunt about this useful system.

Before the linking of this system to the official website of Central Pollution Control Board, the data will be collated on a trial basis, for a week.

Although, installation of an LED is still pending from which the data will be analyzed and assessed at any given time. This will be installed after the equipment is tested for a week.

The LED will be a life-sized one on the terrace of the office, through which anyone (most importantly the public) would be able to witness the real-time data.

Before the system became operational, the data could be recorded on only a few factors like Sulphur Dioxide, Nitrogen Dioxide etc. But now the board will be able to record real-time data on over 10 critical factors.

The Central Pollution Control Board also has few plans of installing and making automatic ambient air quality monitoring system operational in Hapur also but that will take a little time.

The Metro link between Kalindi Kunj and Botanical Garden in Noida, which is 3.9 km in distance, is all set on track to start next month and it’s a Megenta line.

The Noida authority has asked the Chief Commissioner of Railway Security (CCRS) to start with the inspections while the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is doing everything possible to commission the track after going through successful trials.

DMRC is holding harsh trials for this magenta metro link between Botanical Garden and Kalinidi Kunj. The interface of this metro will be driverless and that is the reason it is being strictly checked to make sure that during the movement of the train, there is no contravention on the civil infrastructure. Coaches have subsystems which too are being checked.

The new technology of UTO (Unattended Train Operations) enablement will initially operate on this particular line of metro.

These new trains, which are highly automated, are going through conscientious rounds of trials to be completely ready to operate and run smoothly after this corridor is commissioned. Though initially, trains will be run by the trained operators but after some time the UTO mode will take over.

Usually, these trials take just up to two months to complete, but with this new UTO technology this corridor will take up to 5 months for the trials to get completed.
An eye is kept on various things like testing the train at different speeds, the interactivity with the OCC (Operations Control Centre) and the braking of the train. The nature of the system of tracks and OHE (Over-Head Electrification) is also being monitored constantly. These trials have been going on since October last year. CCRS will hold a close inspection as soon as the trials are completed with authenticity. If this inspection goes smoothly, the metro will the approval to roll.

This corridor from Botanical Garden to Kalindi Kunj will have nine elevated stations which are –
• Jasola Vihar
• Kalindi Kunj
• Okhla Bird Sanctuary
• Okhla Vihar
• Shaheen Bagh
• Okhla NSIC
• Kalkaji Mandir
• Sukhdev Vihar
• Jamia Milia Islamia

Homebuyers usually show reluctance in taking legal action against the builders as there are very high expenses in litigation for homebuyers. In such cases the homebuyers can be deprived of the justice. To prevent this injustice Supreme Court has recently set up a Middle Income Group Legal Aid Society. It brings down the legal expenses by 70%-80% for middleclass homebuyers who have an income of 7.5 lakhs per annum.

An individual just has to pay Rs.500 and Rs.700 as service charge and admission fees respectively. After this, he has to fill up the names of any three lawyers who are a part of this society and are willing to fight the case for him/her. These lawyers cannot charge more than Rs.14000 as their fees for fighting the case.

This is the first time that the middle class are applicable for legal aid, as earlier only poor were applicable for it. Middle Income Group Legal Aid Society has been formed as the supreme court has realized that it is difficult even for the middle class buyers to afford the high costs involved in litigation and everybody has the right to fight for justice.

When an individual will file a petition, the advocate will comprehend the case to decide if the case is appropriate to go to the Supreme Court. If the advocate seems irresponsible regarding the case, he will have to return the fees to the applicant along with the briefing. The name of advocate will also be removed from the list of legal panel of lawyers.

A real estate regulator should also be executed by the government in an organised manner so that the disputes and issues of homebuyers are resolved.

The formation of Middle Income Group Legal Aid Society is a very helpful and wise step in the favour of middle class but the only challenge that can come up is the negligence of the lawyers towards the cases of this society in comparison to the his regular cases.