GFWA takes EDC extraction issue in Faridabad by Govt and Builders to forefront

[dheerajjain]

Hindustan Times Estates (20th April, 13) has given front page big coverage to EDC issue raised by Greater Faridabad Welfare Association (GFWA). Extraction of thousands of crores of money done by Govt. and builders in name of EDC has been exposed. If you don't subscribe to Hindustan Times, then buy today's newspaper :-)

Please read and leave your comments here:

http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/ ... 0000001001

Also, attaching Page 69 of Hindustan Times.

GFWA is in final stages for rollback of enhanced EDC case and requires money to sustain fight in honorable High Court at Chandigarh. Please renew your membership (Memberships before 2013 are expired) or become a new member of GFWA today. Please follow instructions at:
gfwa-membership-renewal-new-registrations-2013-t1537.html

Unite for Greater cause, Unite for Greater Faridabad

[webmaster]

Here are the excerpts and images of the article from HT Estate.

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Faridabad Homebuyers robbed of crores ?

Residents’ welfare associations allege some builders have extracted a whopping R1600 crore from them as ‘external development charges’

Are you a homebuyer who has paid more than R1 lakh to your builder for ‘external development charge (EDC)?’ If yes, then you could be among thousands of homebuyers in the Greater Faridabad area, who have paid more than what they were supposed to... And this ‘extraction’ could total a whopping R1600 crore.

In what could turn out to be the biggest case of cheating of the vulnerable middleclass homebuyer, some alert consumers have discovered that they could have been forced to pay extra money to their builders – anything between R1 lakh and a whopping R5lakh – for EDC, which is levied on the builders by the government for connecting their projects to sewage, water supply systems – anything which is considered to be ‘external development’.

“When a satellite township is launched, development work such as water supply, sewerage, drains etc are undertaken. So state governments, while issuing licences to developers to start group housing projects, decide on an amount to be charged from the developers as EDC. The developers in turn pass this extra cost to homebuyers – and in most cases overcharge them, and ensure huge profit margins for themselves,” says Umesh Prabhakar, general secretary of the Greater Faridabad Welfare Association (GFWA).

Calculating the EDC of a particular project is complicated, says Prabhakar. While the government charges EDC on an acre, some developers break it into smaller units, ie, per square foot, adding extra costs as they like. For instance, in 1994, the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), had fixed

R30.45 lakh per acre EDC for Faridabad, subject to an increase of 10% per annum on compoundable basis. This meant costs had gone up by R104.44 lakh per acre in 2007. “So, a developer, who had applied for a licence in 2007, was supposed to pay R104.44 lakh for each acre of land to the government in that year. If we convert this amount on a per-square-foot basis, it comes to R137. The developers, however, charged between R150 and R160 per sq ft from homebuyers. We discovered these ‘manipulations’ one-and-a-half years ago and now have reasons to believe that the builders have made profits of hundreds of crores,” says Narendra Chabra, president of GFWA.

What aggravated the problems of the homebuyers was the EDC hike by HUDA in 2011. Not only that, these steeply hiked rates were made effective from 2006.

“This complicated EDC calculation and gave more opportunities to the developers to get money out of the homebuyers. Thankfully, just last month, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed the implementation of the new notification of the increased EDC. However, by that time the homebuyers had already paid a huge amount to the developers,” says Ashish Kaul, an interior designer who has invested in one of the group housing projects.

When the case was being heard, the homebuyers had apprised the director general, town and country planning (DGTCP), Haryana, of the matter. An audit committee, set up by him to investigate the issue, had said in its report that no uniform method was being adopted by the developers to fix EDC rates.

“There is no provision/ standard formula in the rules regarding charging of EDC from the buyers and no uniform policy has so far been

[drajitpratap]

This news in itself a big moral boosting for we all gfwa members. well done gfwa!!!

[drajitpratap]

Hard work of gfwa has started showing results. This whole business of EDC is cheating and HUDA and govt both are culprits. Our case is going to take a interesting turn . We can even file a criminal case of cheating on govt. I think as we are paying tax to govt for all these things, Govt is duty bound to give all this free of cost to a budding township. Even this is priority for govt of india. More than 1crore as edc for 1 acer !? what will be price of the land and cost of flat . I have paid more than 10lacks as edc for 3350 sq ft, and this all on paper, what could be a better ground to file criminal case against builder and on govt, as even after our written information and documantary proof, govt has not taken action against builder. If we all gfwa members agree we can take this movt to next level, but this will become a political issue... :Well done gfwa!!!

[ATT509582]

There is a website of Zee helpline where we can send our issues online to Zee news regarding BPTP fraud & Zee news will raise the issue in News programme . I already sent my complaint of BPTP to zeenews online. Please send more & more complaints thru online so that they can consider it as a high level of fraud by BPTP & highlight the issue as a national News. Hope it can create pressure to government & decision can be taken fastly. below is the website link where you can register your complain regarding BPTP.

http://zeenews.india.com/zeehelpline/

[ATT509582]

Today ZEE Business expose fraud of builders on national TV in their 30 mints telecast.