Publication : THE Economic Times; Quick Bytes
Headline : DLF to surrender 5 IT/ITeS SEZs; approaches govt
Page No : 09
Reeling under a cash crunch, the country’s largest real estate player, DLF, has approached the government on surrendering its (DLF’s) five of the nine IT-ITeS notified special economic zones (SEZ). “DLF has nine (notified) IT-ITeS special economic Zones, five of them are dropping… they have made an application and it will come up after the elections,” a senior commerce ministry official said on Wednesday. However, when contacted, a company spokesperson said, “We don’t comment on market speculations”. While it can not be as why the company plans to drop some of its SEZ’s, the entire real estate sector has been hit by a credit crunch, which has affected plans of major realty players. According to industry sources, firms like DLF and Parsvanath have been unable to raise funds for their SEZ projects.
Publication : Propety World April-09
Headline : UPA Govt. plans to bUILD a million homes
Page No : 12
THE Central government cleared a scheme to build a million “affordable” houses across the country over the next four years. A meeting of cabinet Committee on electronic affairs (CCEA) gave to go ahead for construction of a million houses. The scheme though targeted at housing of middle and low-income families will also have 2.5 lack houses for the economically weaker sections (EWS). The houses will have the plinth area of 300-1,200 sq ft. States will release lands for building such affordable houses, the center will fund 25 percent of the total cost on external civic infrastructure such as roads and water supply. It has set aside Rs.5000-crore for this purpose. Apart from the privet sector, state housing boards, employees’ welfare housing societies are expected to partner the govt. The scheme will also fuel applications for home loans at reduced interest rates.
Publication : Propety World April-09
Headline : Opportunities lie in infrastructure deficit
- REAL ESTATE IN REAL INDIA
Page No : 08
The real estate sector can be the growth driver during these hard times. The demand for housing in India in the lower and mid-budget segment is estimated to be about 80-million units. Strangely, smaller developers from tier III rd cities feels strongly about conservativeness of the prospects figure of demand for residential property. The GDP growth rate in this country is expected to be more then 6 per cent which will be the best not just in its class, but even by global standards.
The problem of the Real Estate sector is not that of estimation which is creating disenchantment among the developer communities and their constituencies. The bigger the project the better the benefits accrued to the end-users as well as the government (in terms of levies), yet approvals for larger projects can inordinately delay projects. Buying land from farmers though considered a sticky issue for large developers of housing complexes, township of SEZ’s, getting approvals is the biggest uncertainty.
The worst affected are the recent entrants into the real estate sector, ie: foreign direct as well as indirect investors. New building constructed in the country in the city will not get water supply from the municipality till 2010. Recently a survey proved that drinking water from all regions of the city had high faecal matter content that can cause cholera and jaundice.
The image of real estate sector is only changing gradually. The fact remains that if the real estate sector has always been identified with sweetheart deals and black money payments, a huge contributor to the cause is government’s adamant refusal to reform the system of approvals and having single window clearance.
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