Mumbai, Sep 20 : Just ahead of the festival season, the realty sector watchdog, Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Maha RERA) has cracked the whip on 388 builders in the state for various lapses and frozen their projects' bank accounts, an official said. Of the 388, the highest are from Pune (89), followed by Thane (54), Nashik (53), Nagpur (41), Palghar (31), Raigad (22), Mumbai (20), Satara (13) and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (12). The others are from: Kolhapur (7), Sindhudurg and Wardha (6 each), Ratnagiri and Solapur (5 each), Amravati (4), Jalgaon, Sangli and Ahmednagar (3 each), Washim, Chandrapur and Latur (2 each), Akola, Yavatmal, Nanded, Dhule, Beed (1 each). The stern move came last week after these realtors allegedly failed to provide their respective project updates to the home-buyers on their websites, and not responding to the Maha RERA's notices in the matter. The realtors shall now be banned from advertising, taking up marketing or selling the flats/homes on these projects till further notice or till they comply with all Maha RERA directives, an official said here. The sub-registrars have also been ordered not to register agreements of sale and sale-deeds for the properties under these tainted projects, specifically those from early this year. By January 2023, the Maha RERA had registered 746 projects which were mandated to provide full updated and current information in their quarterly filings by April 20, 2023. This would include details on the number of bookings for flats, garages, the income received from these, the actual spend on construction, modifications if any made to the projects, etc. Out of these 746 who were served the 15-day notices followed by 45-day warning notices to comply, 358 replied and the remaining 388 ignored them. Accordingly, the Maha RERA clamped down on these errant 388 builders by freezing their bank accounts, and halting registration of the sale agreements. All this could seriously hamper the work of these projects, particularly with the auspicious festival season of Navratri-Diwali when the realty sector experiences a boom. /IANS