BW Communities

The Shahberi Lessons

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[In almost every case, where real estate builders run foul of the law and flout regulations, it is the buyers who pay the price. But in the Greater Noida Shahberi case, the Supreme Court has ruled in favour of investors and has asked builders to refund the money to the buyers since the land remains disputed. The judgement should be used by the government to enact a proper law that will bring some order to the unruly world of construction. Two aspects highlighted by this case require immediate attention. First, even before construction on the project starts, the developer usually uses up the funds either in completing  pending projects or for buying land for future projects. This makes refund of the investors money very difficult. The guideline of keeping money raised for a project in an escrow account for use only in that particular project should be made mandatory. Second, builders must not be allowed to sell projects unless they have at least 80-85 per cent of the requisite clearances in hand. If this is made a blanket requirement, cases like Shahberi region could be prevented. Anjuli Bhargava TELECOM: Gains Of Networking Telecom operators in India have begun to appreciate the Swedish proverb, "Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow." Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular will share their 3G networks. Roaming agreements — both inter and intra circle — will be the norm. It will help all operators provide seamless service. Network sharing is inevitable since no private operator opted for an all-India 3G spectrum licence. <img src="/businessworld/system/files/opportunity_300x377.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 5px;" height="377" width="300">Private operators paid Rs 67,719 crore in last year's spectrum auction, but only some have rolled out 3G networks so far. Also, the spectrum is being used only for voice services, instead of data services. Voice is still the priority for telecom operators. In network sharing, revenue is shared by the host and the operator in a 60:40 ratio. But this will change when the data traffic increases, says a telecom industry analyst. The current sorrow will then be transformed to shared joy. M. Rajendran Birds To Watch The Angry Birds are getting hungry. Rovio, the maker of the popular mobile/ computer game with over 250 million downloads, is now seeking to tap its huge audience for ad revenues. Its options: profile players to tempt advertisers; linkup with Facebook; and build its own social network. (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 25-07-2011)