Abstract

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development (R&D)) Act, 2016 aimed to set up Real Estate Regulatory Authorities (RERA) for the regulation and promotion of the real estate sector in a transparent and accountable manner. One of the important elements introduced by the Act was a web portal to be maintained by RERA, which would empower homebuyers to make informed decisions when buying their dream homes, as well as enable them to take stock of the project status and approvals. This policy brief reviews the RERA websites of 20 different states and union territories to see how they fared on user-centricity and transparency on project information. The findings reveal that more than half of the reviewed websites have a decent performance along the selected parameters. However, there is a variation in the level of information and a lack of standardisation, thereby limiting complete transparency in the sector. This is often a reflection of the variation in the functioning of RERAs themselves. There is sufficient scope for RERAs to improve user centricity of their websites, and to adopt best practices from each other.