new delhi faced with enormous delays in getting approvals value budget housing corporation is now adopting a strategy of developing smaller fiveacre housing projects that do not require the environment ministrys clearance thus saving the company at least 1218 months promoted by former citibank executive jaithirth jerry rao and ps jayakumar vbhc has also decided to cap the height of the buildings at 15 metres so that they dont require airports authority of india aai clearance either saving further time our biggest challenge has been getting approvals on time it delays our execution and increases cost we can do a fiveacre project faster says rao the companys first project in bangalore was built on 30 acres of land all real estate projects with over 200000 square feet of builtup space need environment clearance from state governments any building taller than 15 metres also requires clearance from aai to ensure it does not fall in the flight path developers say delays in getting government approvals push up project costs significantly you are buying a land and sitting on it for two years and we are not allowed to borrow money for land we have to use our most expensive capital and equity to buy land in the meantime we incur overhead costs so you are talking about a 100 increase in the cost of your land in two years says rao delays lead to an increase in the cost of projects which means developers have to hike prices therefore the project becomes less affordable and fewer middleclass can buy it its almost as if the government of this country wants only the rich to buy homes he adds india is the only country he says which has the term noc or noobjection certificate we have looked at mexico colombia no other country has nocs here we have to get nocs from every single bureaucratic organisation increasing the cost of projects he says vbhc which was set up in 2009 and sells homes in the 822lakh price range was hoping to build 15 housing projects by 2013 this plan was delayed because of approvals coming in late currently the company has six projects and by the end of this year it will have 10 projects by june next year we will have 15 projects which is exactly a year and a half late says rao who founded the software company mphasis in 1998 and later sold a controlling stake in it to electronic data systems for 380 million in 2006 rao had worked with citibank till 1998