Realtors in Haryana owe over Rs 21,600 crore in EDC and IDC charges

CHANDIGARH: Due to the heavy penal interest of 15% per annum, arrears of extra development charges (EDC) and infrastructure development charges (IDC), to the tune of Rs 21,678.88 crore, are outstanding towards the real estate developers across the state.

Nearly 80% arrears are penal interest on EDC and, in the case of IDC, the penal interest amount has crossed even 100%.

Of Rs 10,810.16 crore EDC arrears, Rs 2,087 is simple interest and Rs 7,971.81 is penal interest. Similarly, Rs 809.90 crore is outstanding IDC, out of which Rs 403 crore is penal interest on default amount of Rs 399.39 crore.

The town and country planning department has cancelled the licences of 44 developers for defaulting on payments.

To encourage clearing of debts, the government had offered various amnesty schemes from time to time. The latest one is ‘samadhan se vikas’, a scheme introduced during lockdown that waived off 75% interest in case the developers remits at least 50% of the outstanding arrears.

Even this offer too failed to generate any interest among the defaulters as only 12 developers had availed the scheme, which could yield recovery of just Rs 100.32 crore, the officials said.

Director general of town and country planning department, K M Panduranga confirmed the piling up of arrears. He, however, maintained that efforts are being made to recover debts. “Developers are also a source of income to state exchequer. We have got representation from them about certain reliefs and issues. We are hopeful of putting things on track,’’ said Panduranga.

Parveen Jain, national vice-president and Haryana president of National Real Estate Development Council (Naredco), however, strongly advocated more support and amnesty schemes.

“It is not the intention of developers to not clear the arrears and default amounts of EDC and IDC, but they are unable to clear them due to the poor state of affairs of the real estate market for the last one year,’’ he said.

Naredco has discussed this issue with the government and a policy was framed regarding the discount to be availed.