Equinox Realty, the property development arm of Essar group, has announced plans to invest around Rs.4,000 crore to develop residential units across the country. The company will launch 1.4 million square feet residential project in Bangalore in the last quarter of calendar year 2011 and a one-million housing project in Thane near Mumbai in the next one year. The company also intends to develop an information technology park in Bangalore and a mixed -use project in Nagpur in Maharashtra.
At present, its 1.2-million sq ft business park is operative in Kurla area of Mumbai, bought by the Essar Group from Ashok Pirmal Group three years ago for Rs.1,200 crore.
“We have committed around Rs.3,500 crore to Rs.4,000 crore across various projects and already pumped in a sizeable chunk of that,” said Cherag Ramakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer, Equinox Realty Holdings, has said.
Equinox is also developing townships for the Essar group of companies in Gujarat, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh, spread over 8 million sq ft.
“The idea was to be operationally capable before launching big projects. The captive projects are not the big revenue earner for us, they are more for our engines to get oiled before we set out,” he said. Aiming to tap the demand for homes, many corporate houses have announced housing projects in the country.
However, Equinox is not in a hurry to launch property projects, Ramakrishnan added. “We are going slow on the launches. The idea is that within 12 months, we want to launch one project every year. We are here to build small volume, reasonable value and good quality properties.” After Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore, the company will be looking at Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Hyderabad, he added.
