Home buyers will be a worried lot as the real estate sector is one of the worst impacted by the corona-induced nationwide lockdown. The cash-strapped sector will witness further delays in the completion of projects.

As many as 4.66 lakh units across seven major cities, scheduled to be ready and delivered by the year end, could miss the deadline, according to a report by Anarock Property Consultants. The report also highlighted the need to address the labor shortage issue. Unless it is addressed immediately, project deliveries will stutter going forward, it said.

“If not for Covid-19, the top seven cities were to see the delivery of nearly 4.66 lakh units by 2020-end. Launched after 2013, many of the projects were on the final leg of completion. With almost zero construction activity in the last few months due to the lockdown, the completion deadlines for almost all these projects have got extended,” the report said.

Another 4.12 lakh units were slated for completion and delivery across these seven cities in 2021-12 per cent lower than in 2020. “Most of these projects will probably also get delayed,” the report added.

Anuj Puri, chairman, Anarock Property Consultants, said that homebuyers would have to adjust to new realities.

“The government must intervene to address multiple challenges including labor shortage in top cities. Even if developers have the financial strength, it will still take a while for most of them to resume construction because lakhs of laborers have left cities and migrated back to their villages. Moreover, many of the top cities are still grappling with the virus,” Puri said in a statement.

The national capital region or NCR was to see maximum completions in both years of 2020 and 2021 of about 2.40 lakh units. Of this, 1.01 lakh units were to come up in 2020 and another 1.39 lakh units in 2021..