NOIDA: Developers of around 30 commercial projects owe over Rs 8,000 crore in dues to Noida Authority. Although some of them were clearing their dues until 2020, the flow of money to the Authority has almost stopped in the past three years, officials said.
Noida Authority CEO Lokesh M on Thursday held a meeting with builders of commercial projects and sought to know about the hindrances coming in the way of clearing dues. Around eight developers attended the meeting and informed the officials about issues related to time extensions and zero periods among others.
According to officials, five of the 30 builders have liabilities of around Rs 6,000 crore in total, while the remaining projects have outstanding amounts of around Rs 100 crore each.
It was decided at the meeting that, from this week, developers would be called to the Authority offices in batches so they could explain their specific issues to the concerned officials to ensure amicable solutions could be reached.
“The Authority will listen to them about their problems and try to solve them. Subsequently, they were asked to pay their dues,” said an official.
Officials said a proposal for resolution of commercial properties was mooted a few months ago and the commercial department was subsequently asked to prepare a report. It revealed negligence on the part of the commercial department, as it failed to open escrow accounts for the developers. Moreover, no focused action was taken earlier.
However, this time as well, Spots City projects — which fall in the commercial property category — have not been included in the exercise. Officials said these projects would also be taken up sequentially in the coming months.
Over 300 hectares of land was allocated at four different locations in the city to execute this scheme, while developers were incentivized through the inclusion of residential and commercial land use.
The land allotment under the Sports City scheme had the prerequisite that the builders would develop international-level sports components on 70% of the land and use the remaining area for residential, commercial and institutional purposes. Many developers flouted these norms and over 30,000 homebuyers are currently stuck in these projects.
Developers owe Rs 8,200 crore to the Authority.
An exercise is already underway to recover dues from developers of 57 defaulter residential projects and execute registry of flats for the past three months.