More land for Delhi
Source: Hindus­tan Times Estate
Dated: 26^th June 10

Sabina Saluja moved from South Delhi to Gur­gaon in the late ‘90s. Thanks to the Mas­ter Plan 2021 that envis­ages cre­ation of five new sub– cit­ies within Delhi, big­ger than Dwarka and Rohini, her 15-year-old son can think of mov­ing back to the Cap­ital ten years from now. With almost 60,000 hec­tares to be unlocked for development/ redevel­op­ment under the new Mas­ter Plan, reverse exodus could be a real­ity in the not-so-distant future.
The Gurgaon-Noida story was based on the premise of lack of avail­ab­il­ity of land in Delhi. It was the abso­lute dearth of land in Delhi that forced people to look for options in the peri­phery. The new Mas­ter Plan is likely to change all that. What one knows the NCR (National Cap­ital Region) could soon be redefined as the NCT (National Cap­ital Ter­rit­ory).
If the eight-lakh applic­a­tions for 4500 DDA flats in 2008 are any­thing to go by, the interest likely to be gen­er­ated in dwell­ings that may come up in these new zones of oppor­tun­ity could be anybody’s guess.

For the unini­ti­ated, the National Cap­ital Ter­rit­ory of Delhi is divided into 15 zones as per the new Mas­ter Plan. Out of these A to H, P,M and K1 are in urban Delhi and J, K2, L, N and P2 fall in what is known as urban exten­sion. Also, with the pop­u­la­tion expec­ted to rise to 230 lakh by the end of this dec­ade and the pro– jec­ted hous­ing demand pegged at more than two mil– lion homes, which means two lakh dwell­ing units a year (a require­ment that gov­ern– ment author­it­ies may not be able to ful­fill), the new Plan seeks to focus on public-pri– vate part­ner­ships and has a pro­vi­sion that provides for entry of private developers in the acquis­i­tion and develop– ment of ‘new’ Delhi land.

“We require 15 lakh dwell­ing units by 2020. The gov­ern­ment does not have the capa­city or the where– withal to accom­plish this task. Hence, the need for the private sec­tor to step in,“ points out A K Jain, former Delhi Devel­op­ment Author­ity (DDA) Plan­ning Commissioner.

Inter­est­ingly, sev­eral lead­ing private developers have already begun acquir­ing land in some of these new zones. Private equity funds are also eye­ing these new oppor­tuni– ties being made avail­able in Delhi. “Delhi is where the end– user demand lies. Once the gov­ern­ment agen­cies are free of the respons­ib­il­it­ies from Com­mon­wealth Games, the entire machinery would get focused on the imple­ment­a­tion of the Delhi Mas­ter Plan 2021,“ says Ajay irector, Certes Dabas, dir­ector, Certes Realty, adding this city will attract much more invest­ment that any other city in India, per­haps in the next 10– 15 years. If imple­men­ted well, this could turn out to be the biggest real estate oppor­tun­ity of recent times.

How­ever, the chal­lenge here is how soon the gov­ern­ment “facil­it­ates the par­ti­cip­a­tion of the private sec­tor through clear­ances and level-playing fields,“ he says. Real estate experts are of the view that the new res­id­en­tial oppor­tun­it­ies that the new Mas­ter Plan is likely to lead to ration­al­isa­tion of res­id­en­tial prices in the sur­round­ing areas.

Delhi will throw up the largest sup­ply of hous­ing in the Rs 18 lakh and Rs 36 lakh price band due to the advant­age asso­ci­ated with buy­ing land cheap. Developers and investors who buy land now can afford to prof­it­ably provide sup­ply in this price band. Delhi will com­pete with areas such as Gur­gaon and Noida. “The largest demand lies in the mid– and afford­able hous­ing segment.

This is because of favour­able land pri­cing. The sur­round­ing mar­kets are cre– ating low-cost/affordable hous­ing pro­jects almost 60 – 80 kms away from the CBD areas of Delhi, with low infra­struc– ture and trans­port­a­tion con– nect. The Delhi oppor­tun­ity would bring back qual­ity of life, afford­ab­il­ity through the MPD vis­ion of integ­rated sub cit­ies,“ says Dabas.
If one were to ana­lyse the cur­rent real estate mar­ket scen­ario, one will find that while Gurgaon’s res­id­en­tial prices have shot up and Noida prices are under check due to fresh sup­ply in the mar­ket, the huge land sup­ply in Delhi may see pro­jects being launched at Rs 4,500 to Rs 5,500 per sq ft in some of these new zones due to tough com­pet­i­tion, says Anckur Srivasttava, chair­man, Gen­Real Prop­erty Advisers Private Limited.

Also, a 100 m urban express­way road that will ori­gin­ate at NH1 and cut through NH10, NH8 and go up to NH2, will be the life­line of all these new zones. It would be what the Noida-Greater Noida Express­way is for the east­ern suburbs.

A final word of cau­tion though  the cost of approvals and infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment charges will determ­ine the final price of the res­id­en­tial units even though raw land is cheaper than Gur­gaon, adds Amit Kaicker, head of Land and Indus­trial Agency for North India at inter­na­tional con­sult­ants Jones Lang LaS­alle Meghraj.

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