Carpet Area vs RERA Carpet in Tender Documents: Why It Matters

What is the difference between carpet, built-up and super built-up area?

Carpet area is the net usable floor area inside your flat, measured excluding the thickness of walls. DCPR 2034 uses the same meaning as RERA 2016, so RERA carpet and DCPR carpet are the same thing. The other two are wider:

• Built-up area adds the wall thickness and balconies.
• Super built-up area adds a share of lobbies, staircases, lifts and other common space — a loading the developer decides, not the law.

The same flat can be described three ways, and the super built-up figure always sounds biggest.

Why do bids become impossible to compare?

Suppose three developers each offer “35% more area”. If one quotes on carpet, another on built-up and the third on super built-up, the flats you actually receive differ a great deal, though the headline number looks identical. This is the commonest way societies are short-changed — not by fraud, but by loose wording.

Insist that every tender response states existing and proposed area on RERA carpet, in sq.ft, flat by flat. Convert any figure a bidder gives you with the carpet and built-up converter, then place the corrected numbers side by side in the offer comparison tool.

What should the society put in writing?

Write it into the tender itself: all areas to be quoted on RERA carpet, with the definition reproduced. Carry the same basis into the registered Development Agreement and the PAAA, and ask for stamped floor plans with dimensions. Under RERA 2016 the agreement for sale must state carpet area, so any other figure is only marketing. If you want a rough sense of the extra area your own building might support before the bids arrive, work it out on the additional area calculator — every plot is different, so use your own numbers rather than a rule of thumb.