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: All said and done, land acquisition bill is going to be a reality. What are the issues that make you so critical of it? Is it just the fresh cost of acquisition?
Anil Sharma: No, that is not that important. First of all, there must be a difference between acquisition and purchase. That act does not clearly define if I am going to buy wilfully from the landowner in a free market, how come it falls under acquisition?
Ravi Sinha: The point is NAREDCO has made certain objections to it, CREDI has certain points. Prima facie the government also seems to be concerned with the sector now. So where is the disconnect? Why could all the stake holders not evolve a consensus during the year 2012?
Anil Sharma: Real estate sector is not directly related to the land acquisition, they are a cousin of infrastructure. In 2012, we have again failed in infrastructural development because of stalemate. Every government speaks about the PPP model but whenever you go into, the real outcome of this PPP model is a big zero. You can see that no highway development has happened under the PPP model.
Again in township development this gap continues. I am going in an auction to buy government land and you are saying it falls under a PPP model. What is a PPP model? I am putting money to develop the land and only you are putting a small example that you have to create 50 dwellings for EWS. Is this a PPP model? So most of the PPP model is unsuccessful and the infrastructure companies are absolutely not taking interest.
Ravi Sinha: That is an interesting point, but don’t you think that in the year ahead we will see many real estate companies getting into infrastructure and actually going the other way round? Mr Chawla, what goaded you into infra from real estate?
Harmit Chawla: If I am serious about infrastructure that is not stemming from the fact that I see some money being made and that is why I am getting into infrastructure. I have realised that the kind of situation there is in the country where you get into the project, you really don’t know whether the ROI is going to come in ten or twenty or fifty years. You pay under the table for a hydro-power project, then you pay over the table and after that there is a land acquisition issue and so many “can’t do” caveats over your head.
So, the point is that I see more future in infrastructure in Africa and Europe than I see in India. As a businessman, if I have to put in money, why will I want to put it in a situation in my own backyard where today I really don’t know what is going to happen to the money.
Anil Sharma: The real estate sector is only consuming 3.2 per cent of the land for housing in India, and we are fighting for land acquisition act.
…to be continued
