The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority’s (MHADA) Mumbai Repair and Reconstruction Board has will take over redevelopment projects of 165 buildings in island city which are not completed for more than 10 years or so. Last week minister of state for housing Ravindra Waikar chaired the meeting of MHADA officials and local MLAS and in the meeting it was decided that, MHADA will take over these projects and redevelop these buildings.

IIT Madras has been appointed the Indian coordinator for the 'Smart City' working group of Heritage Network, an Indo- European network of 20 higher education leading technical Institutions. The network, which coordinates for international projects on Smart Cities, collaborates on research and academic activities. A 'Smart City working group' was constituted during the 2nd General Assembly Meeting of the Heritage Network held earlier this month to formulate a workable action plan for the Heritage Network consortium. During this meeting, IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur were chosen as the Indian coordinators along with Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM) and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, selected as the European coordinators.

While chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is expecting Rs 10 lakh crore investment during the three-day Magnetic
Maharashtra: Convergence 2018 Summit, the state has lost an investment of Rs 59,260 crore following withdrawal-
closure of 80 special economic zones. A top bureaucrat confirmed to TOI on Friday that in view of ups and downs in the market, out of the 147 SEZs approved by the Centre for the state, 80 proposals have either been withdrawn or de-notified.

Nearly 100 construction workers took out a rally from Kamla Nehru Park near Sadar Bazar till PWD minister Rao Narbir Singh’s residence on Friday morning to protest against mandatory online registration of workers. According to the protesters, many workers do not have means or knowledge for online registration and the state government should give them an option of offline registration, as well. “All workers’ benefits are linked to their registration cards. However, of late, workers are having trouble getting themselves registered or renewing their registrations as the process is online,” said Rajinder Singh, district secretary, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Gurgaon.

Scam-hit Punjab National Bank (PNB) will not be able to raise additional funds by selling its entire stake immediately in PNB Housing Finance, with capital-market rules prohibiting the state-run lender from doing so within three years of listing. The housing finance company, which was listed on November 7, 2016, has a market capitalisation of Rs 20,000 crore, and PNB’s 33% holding in the listed subsidiary would fetch the lender Rs 6,700 crore at current market prices. Punjab National Bank cannot sell the entire stake in the listed mortgage company because of the lock-in until November 7, 2019.

Thirteen days since it became operational from temporary premises, Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (H-
RERA) Gurgaon is yet to start taking action on the over 300 complaints from home buyers it has received so far, because of delay in appointing a judicial officer as ‘registrar’. The rule states a retired judicial officer of rank district judge or additional district judge need to be appointed as RERA registrar, who would be responsible for registering complaints and issuing notices, based on which the H-Rera chairman and members will conduct hearing to address the grievance.Without a registrar, H-RERA is unable to register complaints (currently it is only receiving complaints) or issues notices — the first step in addressing home buyer’s grievances.