"Dream homes" advertised in national dailies are luring aspiring home owners to make big budget investments in township projects in Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

However, to the dismay of many a investor, most of these full page advertisements are fake, duping purchasers into fraudulent deals. Assocham has alerted the government on the unscrupulous activities of so-called real estate developers.

A vigilance committee has been recommended to monitor the projects of all private builders and real estate developers and verify the contents of the advertisements with their actual projects.

A monitoring committee should ideally have members from the Ministry of Urban Affairs, development commissioners, and representatives of the real estate developers' community, retired judges and appointees from industry. With a large number of buyers investing in outstation properties, especially NRIs, not many of them visit the site before signing up.

Real estate developers take undue advantage of this fact, creating glossy brochures and smart websites which leave a positive impression on prospective buyers. Fraudulent deals offering attractive property options at low budgets are rampant in Hardwar, Rishikesh, Nainital, Rudrapur, Mukteshwar, Ranikhet, Kausoli, Dehradun, Bhiwadi, Jaipur, Mathura, Vrindavan, Shimla, Manali, Sonepat and Panipat.

NRIs exploring property investment prospects in India usually go by the internet and the property exhibitions held by real estate developers marketing overseas. A few cases of fake deals have made NRI investors wary of putting in their money in this otherwise lucrative opportunity. Incidents of bogus cases eclipse opportunities for genuine buyers and sellers of property, affecting the industry at large.

A number of established real estate developers do have major township projects underway in these Tier III cities, and the new brand of builders is riding on their popularity, catching the investor's eye with full-blown advertisements and lower rates.

The Assocham President Venugopal Dhoot has urged the government to take immediate steps to put the monitoring committee in place to protect the industry. Punitive measures should be taken against offenders and victims of sham deals should be assisted in getting redressed.

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