In a major move to safeguard the interests of homebuyers, the Karnataka Real Estate Regulatory Authority (K-RERA) has proposed the creation of a dedicated Recovery Cell within the Revenue Department to recover over Rs 650 crore in pending dues from builders who have violated RERA norms.

The decision comes amid growing criticism that K-RERA has failed to enforce its own orders against builders who have not delivered flats on time or violated other regula-tory conditions. Despite issuing Revenue Recovery Certificates (RRCs), several builders have continued to ignore the directives, prompting the need for a more fo-cused mechanism for enforcement.

Currently, the task of enforcing RRCs lies with district collectors and tahsildars. How-ever, their existing administrative burden—including handling elections, census du-ties, and national events—has resulted in minimal focus on recovering these amounts.

According to officials, just 62 out of 565 RRC cases have resulted in actual recovery, amounting to only Rs 18.7 crore, while the remaining 594 cases involve a backlog of Rs 347.44 crore yet to be collected.Notably, 10 major builders account for nearly Rs 347 crore in unpaid penalties. Among them, Ozone Urbana Infra Developers Pvt. Ltd. leads the list with Rs 201 crore pending across 229 cases, of which only Rs 7.53 crore has been recovered so far.

The idea for the Recovery Cell was supported by a proposal submitted by Forum for People’s Collective Efforts (FPCE), a citizens’ rights group advocating for strict im-plementation of RERA provisions.

Welcoming the move, National General Secretary of FPCE, MS Shankar said, “We commend the decision to consider setting up a ded-icated recovery cell to handle builder defaults under RERA.

If implemented, Karna-taka will become the second state in the country to have such a system.”

The new cell is expected to ensure swifter enforcement of K-RERA’s compensation orders, prevent fraudulent practices by errant builders, and offer long-overdue relief to affected homebuyers.

The formal proposal has now been submitted to the state gov-ernment, and discussions are underway to operationalize the cell in the coming months.