Track2Realty-Agencies: Seeking ‘out of the box’ ideas from the real estate sector for affordable housing, the Government on Wednesday, Oct 1, said it will consider recommendations for investing insurance and pension funds in the sector.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Social activist Medha Patkar has rather questioned the need of SEZs and acquisition of such huge tracts of land. Referring SEZs as “pervert corporate projects” Patkar points out that the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) had about 80,000 acres of unutilised land – information unearthed through the Right to Information Act.
Track2Realty Exclusive: A recent commerce ministry discussion paper highlighted that there is a perception that many developers do not set up the proposed SEZ and continue to hold on to large parcels of land with the intention of benefiting from its alternative usage and land price escalation.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The fact that SEZ story in India was left on the private hands, the key policy plank of SEZ policy, to promote manufacturing and hence create jobs (both skilled and semi-skilled) for the rural masses took the back seat. IT/ITeS with limited scope of job creation, compared to manufacturing, started dominating the SEZs.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Commerce Ministry data fails to give a comprehensive picture where many grandiose plans have failed to tap the potential that actually existed. Several SEZ projects and the expansion plans, like the SEZs at Navi Mumbai, Jhajjar in Haryana, Adani’s Mundra, DLF’s Cyber City in Gurgaon, Mahindra World City in Chennai, K Raheja Universal and Flagship Infrastructure in Maharashtra are facing difficulties. The SEZs cumulatively have been losing ground over the past couple of years.
Track2Realty-Agencies: IDFC Alternatives, real estate arm of Infrastructure Development Finance Corp. Ltd (IDFC) has bought assets worth about Rs. 250 crore in Pune’s real estate developer Paranjape Schemes (Construction) Ltd’s Hinjewadi Special Economic Zone (SEZ) for information technology (IT) and information technology-enabled services (ITeS) firms and luxury residential space.
Track2Realty-Agencies: The fate of the Real Estate Regulatory Bill hangs in balance even after PMO steps in to resolve differences between two ministries—Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Urban Development— threatening to further delay the long pending Bill. The PMO has reportedly stepped in and directed the warring ministries to quickly resolve their issues over the bill which aims to protect property buyer’s interest from unscrupulous realtors.
The government has also given more time to as many as 37 Special Economic Zone developers, including Navi Mumbai SEZ, DLF Commercial Developers and Tata Consultancy Services, to execute their projects. Five SEZ developers were allowed to surrender their projects as well. But the mounting criticism is now forcing the government to eject non-serious players from SEZ.
The government has formed a committee to evolve a workable strategy for reducing the time taken in approval of real estate projects which could ultimately reduce the cost of houses by 25 to 40 per cent, minister of housing and urban poverty alleviation Kumari Selja said on Friday, May 11.
Union minister for housing and urban poverty alleviation Kumari Selja has said that the Centre is expected to bring the real estate regulator bill in the winter session.