Lokpal bill and Patna Real Estate.

Has Anna Hazare’s so-called anti-corruption crusade got any impact on the real estate Patna? Well, the question may seem to be borne out of cynicism, but wait. There is an impact, both in the short term as well as long term. A section of the real estate developers in Patna have already announced their pledge to not to pay any bribe to the government officials for getting their projects’ mandatory clearances in Patna.

However, this sudden spurt of morality is a doubtful starter and privately many of the developers in Patna admit it is just the PR gimmick to make sure the sector is not seen as corrupt as the collective consciousness believes it to be. The gathering storm of the Anna Hazare movement against corruption may hurt the real estate developers in Patna the most in the long run. Real estate in Patna is the most corruption-prone sector of them all, with politicians, builders, and criminals involved in the ownership, development and manipulation of realty supply. Any effective Lokpal will have implications for the politician-builder nexus, and, by extension, for the future of the real estate Patna. After all, the real estate sector in Patna, in particular, has been at the heart of several scandals that have erupted in the recent past.

Most people readily accept the generalization that most real-estate developers in Patna are a corrupt and money-grubbing bunch. And the cartelization, and the nexus between politicians and developers in Patna, makes buyers very wary of dealing with such companies. Buying a home, or building one, is a frightening prospect for many home buyers because of the possibility of getting involved in legal battles in the clogged up court system in Patna’s property market.

In other cases, properties in Patna are delivered late by developers or worse, abandoned half-built, in many cases in Patna real estate market. There are, no doubt, hundreds of such horror stories. Because a lot of the developers in Patna are protected by politicians, very few of them are ever brought to justice. Can the real estate sector expect a face lift post Lokpal Bill? Well, its anybody guess. Still, in this season of scandals, it feels like a small victory for the common man and the sector wants to be a party to this overt morality. However, the real estate in Patna, like the politicians, bureaucrats and the Common masses, may fancy with the Lokpal Bill, the proposed legislation only seem to corner everybody’s collective wish list to a mirage.