The paperwork is missing. That’s the headline, though it’s hardly a surprise to anyone who has actually tried to buy a three-bedroom apartment in a city that smells like dust and broken promises. We were told the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act—RERA, for those who like four-letter acronyms that sound like progress—would be the ultimate sunlight disinfectant. It was supposed to be the digital ledger that kept builders honest and buyers sane.

It isn't. According to the Forum for People’s Collective Efforts (FPCE), about 75% of states across India haven’t bothered to submit their annual reports.

Think about that. In a country obsessed with "Digital India" branding, the very mechanism designed to track billions of dollars in middle-class savings is essentially running on a 404 error. It’s not a glitch. It’s a choice. You don’t lose the homework for three-quarters of a country by accident. You do it because silence is a very effective shield for incompetence.

Back in 2016, the pitch was simple: transparency. Every project, every delay, and every diverted rupee would be logged. You could check a portal and know if your builder was a visionary or a crook. But a portal is only as good as the data fed into its gut. Right now, those guts are empty. The FPCE’s latest dive into the numbers reveals a systemic shrug. Most states have treated the mandatory annual report—the one piece of paper that actually proves the regulator is doing something other than occupying a nice office—as an optional suggestion.

It’s classic vaporware. We bought the subscription, but the software never actually downloaded.

Let’s talk about the friction. Take a typical homebuyer in Noida or suburban Mumbai. Let’s call him Amit. Amit isn't looking for a "transformative experience." He's looking for a roof that doesn't leak and a deed that isn't contested. He pays his 10% booking fee—maybe 45 lakhs he’s been hoarding since his first job—and he looks for the RERA filing. He sees a registration number. He feels safe.

But when the project stalls three years later, he goes back to the site. The annual report for his state? Non-existent. The progress updates? Last touched in 2021. The "strict" penalties for non-compliance? They’re buried under a mountain of bureaucratic inertia. The builder knows the regulator isn't watching, because the regulator hasn't even bothered to tell the central government what it’s been doing for the last twelve months. It’s a feedback loop of nothingness.

The trade-off is grim. On one side, you have the glossy brochures, the 3D-rendered infinity pools, and the celebrity endorsements. On the other, you have a total lack of institutional memory. When 21 out of 28 states decide that reporting their activities is a bridge too far, they aren't just being lazy. They’re signaling to the construction lobby that the guardrails are made of wet cardboard.

The tech side of this is even more insulting. We have the capability to track a grocery delivery in real-time, but we can't get a PDF of an annual audit uploaded to a government server. It’s a UI designed to frustrate. Dead links, "under construction" banners that have stayed up longer than the actual buildings, and search bars that return zero results for billion-dollar developers. This is transparency as performance art.

Why does this happen? Follow the money. Real estate is the great laundromat of the local economy. It’s where cash goes to become concrete. If the RERA reports were actually filed—if they were detailed, timely, and cross-referenced—the discrepancy between what’s on the books and what’s in the ground would be glaring. You’d see the cost overruns. You’d see the redirected funds. You’d see why that "luxury" tower is currently a skeleton of rusted rebar.

Instead, we get the Great Disconnect. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs can talk all it wants about reform, but without the data, it’s just noise. They’re flying a plane with the windows painted black and the radar turned off.

The FPCE is shouting into a void. They’ve pointed out that without these reports, there is no way to verify if the grievances are being settled or if the "penalties" are actually being collected. It’s a black box. You put your life savings in, you wait ten years, and you hope for the best.

It’s a peculiar kind of irony. In the era of big data, the most important data in a person's life—where they live and what they paid for it—remains the most elusive. We can map the moon, but we can't seem to find out if a developer in Haryana spent his escrow account on a new fleet of SUVs.

The system isn't broken. It's working exactly as intended for the people who don't want you to see the books.

How many more years of "missing reports" do we need before we admit the watchdog hasn't just been sleeping, but has actually left the building?