bengaluru as many as 542 ongoing real estate projects are facing uncertainty with the real estate regulatory authority karnataka rerak issuing a notification prohibiting projects with provisional approval from doing businessthe notification which came into effect on april 1 2018 mandates that builders get permanent approval before advertising projects entering into agreement with customers and accepting advance money from themfollowing the move rerak authorities have started issuing permanent registration numbers to approved projects the notification however has cast a shadow on projects which are under the process of approval most of them are in bengalurudue to the notifications ambiguity hundreds of ongoing projects are in limbo we request rera authorities to provide more clarity so that both builders and customers feel safe about the money spent on projects said shyam mareddy vicepresident of builders and real estate developers association of india bredaisince the real estate regulatory authority act came into effect on july 10 2017 rerak had adopted a process of issuing a provisional approval number to applicants allowing them to do business so far the authority has processed 2056 applications of which 1466 have been approved as many as 385 projects are under consideration 157 are under query and 52 have been rejected all these were operational on the basis of provisional approval and in many of them more than half the work has been completed with permanent approval becoming compulsory these projects have virtually been rendered illegalthe biggest issue is that builders have collected money from customers and invested it in the projects it was legitimate till rerak issued the notification who will take responsibility for the chaos as both builders and customers are worried about their investments said vinay thyagaraj a rera consultantp sunil kumar secretary of rerak clarified that builders are at fault as they were not supposed to take money from customers and do business based on the provisional approval number given to them section 3 of the rera act clearly says no promoter shall advertise market or sell the product until the project is permanently approved the provisional approval number is an acknowledgement of sorts and has no legitimacy builders shouldnt have gone ahead said sunil kumarwhile the beleaguered real estate industry has hit the panic button kapil mohan chairman of rerak sought to assuage their worries by saying the notification comes into effect prospectively what we are saying is that builders have to get permanent registration for projects from april 1 if you ask me can ongoing projects with provisional approval continue business my answer would be yes he saidthe concern however is what if the projects fail to get permanent approval finally mohan said the builder has to refund the money to the customer if the application is rejected its not going to be easy how can you expect a builder to give back money when he has already spent it on the project reraks latest move will wreak havoc said thyagarajwhile seeking more clarity mareddy said the best possible solution could