By: Pranay Vakil, Chairman, Praron Consultancy
Track2Realty Exclusive: India’s urban population will soar from 340 million in 2008 to 590 million in 2030 as estimated. And this urban expansion will happen at a rapid speed.
Cities can also bring a higher quality of life. Urban scale benefits mean the cost of delivering basic services is 30 to 40 percent cheaper in concentrated population centers than in sparsely populated areas.
But to reap such benefits, India needs to meet an unparalleled policy challenge. If it fails to do so, this could seriously jeopardize its growth and risk high unemployment.
It is estimated that India needs to invest $1.2 trillion just in capital expenditure in its cities over the next 20 years, equivalent to $134 per capita per year, almost eight times the level of spending today.
If India taps into five sources of funding used in cities around the world—monetized land assets, higher property taxes, user charges that reflect costs, debt and public-private partnerships, and formula-based government funding—its largest cities could generate as much as 80 percent of the funding they require from internal sources.
Hence my priorities lies in transparent, clear and consistent policies develop by realtors with ethical investment. The realtor should take upfront decision to build good base structure for empowering Indian economy.
