Panelists—Dr Anil Sharma, CMD, Amrapali Group
Sunil Dahiya—Sr Vice President, NAREDCO & MD Vigneshwara Developers
Harmit Chawla—MD, HCorp Realty
PK Tripathi—President, Unitech
Moderator—Ravi Sinha, CEO & Managing Editor, Track2Realty
Ravi Sinha: The point here is how feasible are the wishful thoughts of the sector in 2013?
Sunil Dahiya: The commercial essence of our product has been taken out. Now the consumer is saying let me wait for something, and he is waiting in eternity for something better to come. What he is waiting for, we also don’t know. So, the consumer has been loaded with confusion, and we are loaded with a product which is dead.
Two things, outside the manufacturing process, if I don’t see the factory and come outside the manufacturing process, can the government supply us land? There is ample land available. As far as the ministry is concerned, 11 crore acres of land is available with the PSU’s in Delhi. These are PSU’s that are un-utilizing their land. They don’t know how to monetise the prime land that they are sitting on.
So, ultimately all our land supply is being under-utilised. So, do we really need to wait for a land reform act to come into place to bring that supply in? We have that ample supply available. The government just needs to decide as to whether we should sell this land, or auction this land or it should be a triple themed model. That is the whole issue. I think that commercial sense has to be installed.
PK Tripathi: You have no choice but to have a system where you have a building model, and then houses can be done by the developers like us. With new technology, building houses can be quick. Problem is with the policies for a sector which is neither a manufacturer nor a service, despite of being the biggest contributor for the GDP.
Harmit Chawla: I think one other thing that has happened in 2012 and it started from 2011 is the absolute misuse of the word affordable housing and it has gone nowhere. You pick up Africa, you pick up Mexico, the Falkland areas, affordable housing is a globally disastrous concept. It has not picked up in any country.
I have gone through certain data from the UN. Africa has a construction cost of 1100-1300 dollar per square feet. Even if you were to supply raw material and land dirt cheap, just imagine the cost. Affordable housing cannot happen unless and until there is an absolute active participation at the policy level. It depends on the definition of the word housing. In South Delhi, a jhuggi that cost 15,000 bucks five years back has a land value of Rs. 1.5 lakh.
Anil Sharma: The land acquisition act of 1894 has got a thoroughly colonial essence. Unfortunately, after 115 years, we have been acquiring land only on the basis of that act, and taking the basis of that act to formulate a Land Acquisition Bill in 2012. You need to thoroughly change the entire hangover of that old view.
Then the law is being formulated from the central point of view, it is a Parliament act being given to the state. Every state has different demographics, different land record systems. In India, our land record system is much behind different countries.
….to be continued
