Tamil Nadu Real Estate Regulatory Authority has rejected the need to appoint private professionals to examine planning and building-permission applications, saying its own project division has officers and staff with relevant departmental experience. The authority’s response comes amid concerns over delays in registering apartment projects in the state.
The authority said its project division includes officials who have worked in departments responsible for granting planning and building permissions, along with personnel possessing the necessary technical knowledge and experience. On that basis, it said there was no need to bring in private experts to scrutinise applications.
The response followed a report raising the possibility of using private professionals to verify project documents before submission. The proposal was linked to delays in the registration process for apartment housing projects, where applicants are required to provide planning, land and infrastructure-related records.
According to the authority, delays are not caused solely by the internal scrutiny process. It said some applications are incomplete, while others contain discrepancies between land documents and approved land measurements. These inconsistencies can require clarification or additional documentation before an application can be processed.
The authority also identified insufficient documentation relating to infrastructure facilities as another reason for delays in examining some applications. The statement did not provide a number of pending applications, an average processing time or a deadline by which the revised process would reduce the backlog.
The dispute points to a recurring administrative challenge in real-estate regulation: the speed of project registration depends not only on the capacity of the regulator but also on the quality and consistency of documents submitted by applicants. For homebuyers, delays in registration can affect the availability of formal project information and the timing of regulatory oversight. For developers, incomplete or inconsistent records can extend the period before a project moves through the approval and registration system.
The authority said it is taking steps to simplify and accelerate the application-review procedures. Its response did not indicate that private professionals would be introduced at a later stage, and it maintained that such a practice is not followed in any other state.
The next stage will depend on how the authority changes its review procedures and whether applicants submit complete land, approval and infrastructure records. The authority’s statement did not specify a date for implementing the proposed process improvements.
