Monday 7 April 2014

TIRED OF DELAYS, CUSTOMERS CAST DOUBT OVER PREMIA PROJECTS



Despite collecting booking amount from customers since its launch in 2012, Premia Corporate City in Greater Noida (West), is yet to see the start of construction. Tired of the delay and scared for the future of their investments, customers have now finally started raising their voices. In-order to find out why the project site still remains barren, The Pioneer investigated into the customer complains and stumbled upon some startling facts.
Voicing his doubts over the completion of his flat and the entire Greater Noida (West) project, Sen Gupta, an investor from Delhi said, “I had invested in the studio apartment of the project but till now nothing has happened. They had given me an allotment number but when I cross-checked it, I found out it was not a legitimate allotment number.”
Gupta has been travelling back and forth to the developer’s office and project site and says that the developer is non-committal about giving him his unit number or the final date of possession. “I once saw some documents from the Noida authority which states that the developer has not received building plan approvals for the studio apartment,” Gupta further added. While raising an important question, Gupta asked that how could the developer sell studio apartments without the proper building approvals?
In order to understand whether a developer is actually allowed to sell apartments in their projects without a building approval from the authorities, The Pioneer approached Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (Credai). While responding to the question, Getamber Anand, President Elect of Credai and Chairman & Managing Director of ATS Infrastructure said, “No developer can sell flats or any other units in the project without getting a building approval from the authority.”
Another Delhi based customer, requesting anonymity, said, “No one knows when the project will be completed and also what is the status of the land that is being used. I have approached the developers through various means but till now haven’t received any reply. Now I am worried if at all they would finish the project?”
To find the answers to these customer complaints, The Pioneer tried to approach Tarun Shienh, Chairman and Managing Director of the Premia Group through various means. When we tried to call the numbers given on the websites of the projects, the promoter was either not available or the staff had no clue about how to reach him. We even sent a request for an interview of Shienh on his personal website but till the time of filing the story, neither did the Group respond nor anyone from Shienh’s office.  
While investigating the customer complains, many interesting facts came up. With almost two years gone, it is quite alarming to know that the construction work on the project is far from the start while the Group launched its commercial project Crown of Noida, Premia Corporate City 2 in Noida Sector 62. Just like its predecessor, the commercial project site is also barren with no signs of construction. 
As per an insider from the real estate industry, “Till now Premia Group has raised almost Rs 1,750 crore as booking amounts from brokers and investors for two of its projects.” Even after ample money has been raised, the construction sites still remain barren. The biggest question at this point is, why hasn’t the construction started even after two year from its launch?
As per the insider, it seems the money is going everywhere except in the place which should have been the top most priority. While the Group has been spending heavily to erect hoarding across the capital and running advertisement campaigns on leading radio stations, they have not invested anything towards actually building the proposed project.
“Tarun Shienh has spent a good amount of money on himself. He got a Lamborghini for himself and almost daily travels in a convoy of expensive luxury cars. He is spending more money on his image than on the projects,” the insider further added.
As we dug deeper, another fascinating factor came up about the project. Premia Corporate City 2 on paper looks quite lucrative to customers as the group is offering assured returns on their investments. As per the project brochure, customers are promised a return of 12.5 per cent on their investments but with construction not even started, it is not clear how the Group would keep its promise.
Currently, home loans given by major banks lie in a range of 10.10 per cent to 10.50 per cent. So basically, Premia Group is offering customers an avenue of investment wherein they can take a home loan and repay it through the assured return which is almost 2 per cent higher. Normally, returns start to come once the customer has his house or shop which he then can put out on rent. With the construction not even started, customers investing in Premia Corporate City 2, might have to wait for a long time to even see if the project reaches delivery stage.
Normally, credibility of a real estate developer lies in the number of years he has been in the industry and how strong has been his delivery line. It seems on the front of experience, there are a lot of discrepancies on the side of Premia Group. While the broachers prominently highlight 21 years of experience in the industry, Tarun Shienh himself only has nearly four years of experience in the real estate sector.
As per Shienh’s profile on a leading professional networking site, he has a total work experience of almost 15 years that too mostly in sales and services. As far as delivery line is concerned, there is not much that can be talked about. Since the projects are far away from construction, completion and delivery seems a farfetched dream.
On paper and in front of public, Premia Group is quite vocal about transparency. Be it CMD’s profile or the group’s website, transparency has been given a lot of importance. But on the other side, The Pioneer has documents taken out from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), which points out that Tarun Shienh is holding top positions in most of the 40 companies.
What is more interesting is that all these companies have the same registered office. As per the MCA, registered address of all these companies is a flat on the third floor in a residential colony of Patel Nagar, Delhi. One would wonder that this small flat would be jam packed with officials from all these companies but in reality, just like the construction sites, the registered office is almost always closed. We inquired by neighbours around this address, it turns out that in every few days someone comes and collects all the letters left on the front door.
This, real estate industry experts say, not just puts a question mark on overall credibility of Premia Group’s promoters but also highlights a leak in the monitoring of MCA on companies.
In the span of just three years, Tarun Shienh, now the Chairman and Managing Director of the Premia Group has created a lot of buzz in the real estate sector of Noida. Coming from a desk managing operations of the National Capital Region for HDFC Standard Life Insurance, Shienh now sits with a crown of “Property Guru” on his head. But the facts when investigated, raises multiple questions on this young business man’s credibility and transparency.

Source:- Dailypioneer.com


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