Bhubaneswar: Prospective buyers of Hi-Tech Paradise residential project near Uttara on the city outskirts will protest at Lower PMG against the inability of the real estate company to hand them over the promised flats.

As many as 329 buyers will take part in the demonstration under the aegis of Hi-Tech Paradise Owners' Welfare Association.

"The company had collected Rs 37 crore as advance from the buyers. Though the company had agreed to give us possession of the flats by December 2014, it failed to keep its promise, for which we sought police action. However, the realtor and the chairman of Hi-Tech Tirupati Panigrahi, in May 2016, had promised us to complete the project in one year. But 22 months have passed and the project is still under construction," said president of the association Amit Das.

Panigrahi, along with two directors of the company, were arrested by the crime branch in December 2012 on fraud charges. The company allegedly duped people of around Rs 315 crore between 2009 and 2012 on the pretext of providing flats.

"We have been paying the bank EMIs for the past seven years along with paying house rent. We have held discussions with the real-estate firm several times but they have been demanding more money from us. We urge the state government to intervene and initiate action against the fraud firm," said vice-president of the association, Bipin Sahoo.

The real-estate company claimed that the money collected from the buyers had already been spent on the construction work. "We have spent around Rs 4.59 crore more than the collected money. So the buyers need to pay the rest of the money, after which we will be able to hand over the flats to them by the last quarter of 2019," said director of Hi-tech Edifice Pvt. Ltd Prafulla Mohanty.