The proposed bill to regulate the real estate sector would make it mandatory for the development authorities to clear the building plan on the basis of carpet area, a top government official said today. 

The government will bring the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill in the next session of Parliament. 

Addressing an Assocham conference on affordable housing, Ministry for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) Secretary Arun Kumar Misra said only the carpet area will be recognised in the regulatory bill. 

"The municipalities and the development authorities would have to pass the map on the basis of carpet area and this would be a mandatory requirement as any other criteria apart from that like the super area or the built-up area and others would not be recognised by us," Misra was quoted as saying in a statement issued by Assocham. 

In the national capital region (NCR), developers sell housing units on the basis of super area that includes built- up area plus area occupied by common amenities like lifts, corridors, club house and stairs. Super area is usually around 25 per cent more than built up area. 

On the real estate regulatory bill, he said: "It would be difficult to give a time frame as we wanted to bring the real estate bill in Parliament in this session but we will not give up and definitely try to bring it in the next session." 

Last month, the Union Cabinet had deferred the approval of draft bill to set up a regulator for the real estate sector with provisions for jail term for the developer for putting out misleading advertisements about projects. 

The proposed regulator also seeks to make it mandatory for developers to launch projects only after acquiring all the statutory clearances from relevant authorities. 

It also has provisions under which all relevant clearances for real estate projects would have to be submitted to the regulator and also displayed on a website before starting the construction. 

Misra said the government would release the affordable housing task force report to the state governments in the next 15 days and would ask them to adopt the policy guidelines