According to a notification issued by the Union government, the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation has decided to set up a committee to discuss various provisions of the bill to tweak it to meet the needs of the current market trends.

"It's a positive development. However, the committee has to include the views and suggestions of all the people connected to the real estate industry, particularly, MCHI because Mumbai is the prime real estate market in India." Pravin Doshi, president, Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry (MCHI), said.

As per the ministry notification, the committee consists of 10 members that include, secretary, ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation, joint secretary of housing, joint secretary of urban development, chairman of Council of Architecture, chairman, National Real Estate Development Council, chairman CREDAI, OP Mathur National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and director housing.

The committee will prepare a model bill to regulate the real estate, consult such other experts and organisation/departments as may be necessary and give a final shape to the model bill for regulating the real estate sector and suggest such other measures as may be deemed necessary by the committee, the government notification said.

It was widely expected that the regulator would begin addressing the grievances of both builders and buyers in 2008. "With real estate prices shooting to record highs and the quality of construction dropping sharply, we had been hoping that a regulator would step in to keep a check on the players," a Mumbai-based property consultant said.