Anamika is a research-oriented writer with experience in writing blogs on home decor and real estate industry. Simply put, she knows the trend and expectations of today’s industry. She is an avid reader, wishes to travel the world, and loves to cook her favorite recipes when not writing.
On Monday, According to the officials, The twin towers – Apex and Ceyane – are set to be demolished on August 21.
NOIDA: A recent study by UK based firm reported that the demolition is unlikely to cause any harm to nearby structural buildings.
Vibrock was hired by Jet Demolition to conduct the study and shared that vibration might cause some very minor cosmetic damage like cracks in fine plaster.
The study also covered the air overpressure and ground-borne vibration at the time the two towers will be brought down. It took into account the blast design, the weight and height of the two towers and Vibrock’s in-house database of similar projects in the past.
The report said “The predicted ground vibration levels range from 22 mms (millimetre per second) to 34 mms at a separation distance of 10 metres to a most likely 3 mms to 5 mms at a separation distance of 100 metres. At the apartment block (Aster 2), a most likely 25 mms, to a maximum likely 36 mms is predicted. From the British Standard, levels of vibration for the prevention of hairline plaster cracking range from 15 mms to 50 mms depending upon vibration frequency. Where such worst case values exceed 15 mms there is some slight risk of some very minor cosmetic damage, i.e. the very finest of plaster cracking. The predicted vibration levels are however below the levels which would cause structural damage to the building.”
Uttkarsh Mehta, a partner in Edifice shared “The report reiterates what we have been saying from the beginning. No structural damage will happen to the nearby buildings. The buildings constructed here are made to withstand earthquakes of 4-5 on the Richter scale.”
FinTech is an industry composed of companies that use technology to offer financial services. These companies operate in insurance, asset management and payment, and numerous other industries. FinTech has emerged as a relatively new industry in India in the past few years.
Our country has the highest FinTech adoption rate globally. The Indian FinTech industry’s market size is $50 Billion in 2021 and is estimated at ~$ 150 Billion by 2025.
The Indian fintech market is expected to reach USD 150 billion in valuation by 2025,” the finance minister said. India’s fintech adoption rate is at 87 percent as against the global average of 64 per cent, the minister added.
So, let’s discuss top fintech companies and know why they are important for our economy’s growth.
1 Razorpay
Company: Razorpay is the highest valued startup in India, it allows your business to accept, process and disburse payments via its products suite. It is India’s first full-stack financial company and its mission is to enhance the payment experience of over 300 million end consumers.
Services: Razorpay gives you access to all the payment modes including credit card, debit card, net banking, UPI and popular wallets including JioMoney, Mobikwik, Airtel Money, FreeCharge, Ola Money and PayZapp.
CEO & headquarters: Harshil Mathur is the CEO of Razorpay, located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. Razor Pay was founded by alumni of IIT Roorkee, Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur, it is the second Indian company to be a part of Silicon Valley’s largest tech accelerator, Y-Combinator.
Turnover: The Bengaluru-based startup saw revenue from sales climb to INR 841.2 Cr in FY21, a 65.2% jump from the INR 508.9 Cr it reported in FY20.
Currently, over 8 million businesses use Razorpay. It is one of the largest payment gateways in the Indian market and witnessed huge opportunities during the Covid pandemic as everything went online.
2 Groww
Company: GROWW is a platform that offers a new way of investing with stock broking and direct mutual funds. Groww makes investing easily accessible for everyone and it enables its users to invest in mutual funds without any hassles.
Services: It is one of the best trading platforms in India and it provides brokerage-free equity delivery trades and brokerage-free mutual funds.
CEO & headquarters: Groww is located in Bengaluru. Four Flipkart employees – Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal and Neeraj Singh, quit their jobs to start a venture that could make investing easy. This venture is called Groww and its operations started in 2017.
The company has witnessed 200% growth in first-time investors in 2020.
Turnover: The company is expanding fast and has also achieved unicorn status in April 2021.The company closed an $83 million worth of its Series D funding round led by Tiger Global Management, which helped it turn into a unicorn startup.
3 Cred
Company: Cred is a reward-based credit card payment app. It also lets users make house rent payments and provides short-term credit lines. Cred is a free mobile application and it simplifies the process of paying bills and simultaneously earning rewards.
Services: This app provides users with a platform to pay their credit dues, rent and other bills, all in one place while earning additional rewards for doing so on time. This company offers five different products like Cred RentPay, Cred Cash, Cred Pay, Cred Store and Cred Travel Store. On August 20, 2021, Cred launched a Peer to Peer (P2P) lending feature known as Cred Mint that aims to monetize through its 7.5 million users.
CEO & Headquarters: CRED is an Indian fintech company, based in Bangalore. Founded in 2018 by Kunal Shah.
CRED is one of those legendary startups that got funding right before its execution. This was made possible by the brilliance of Kunal Shah. Cred received criticism for being overvalued and lacking a sound monetization strategy and made a loss of 63.90 crores and 378.89 crores in 2019 and 2020, respectively but despite all these losses Cred was trusted by investors.
Turnover: CRED has turned into a startup unicorn with a $2.2 billion valuation in a very short span of time. Cred has reported total revenue of Rs 95.5 crore for the financial year ending March 31, 2021 (FY21). In FY20, it was Rs 18.14 crore.
CRED App operates in compliance with NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) guidelines. NPCI is a payment system operator authorized by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
4 BharatPe
Company: BharatPe makes payment acceptance easy by offering merchants a single QR to accept all the payment apps. It has made payment acceptance simple and free for all businesses with no transaction charge. It accepts all kinds of apps such as PayTm, PhonePe, Google Pay, BHIM and 150+ other UPI apps.
Services: BharatPe provides its consumers with a digital payment platform. By using this platform business owners can make transactions with customers using a single BharatPe QR Code that accepts payments from all UPI Apps. By making continuous transactions through the BharatPe QR Code, you can avail loan offers, cashback and many other bonus offers.
BharatPe also offers a unique P2P Lending product, wherein BharatPe’s merchants have the option to take 1M/3M/6M/12M loans starting from INR 25k and going up to INR 7 Lakhs at competitive rates and payback in the form of EDIs (Easy Daily Installments).
CEO & Headquarters: Suhail Sameer is the CEO of BharatPe, headquartered in New Delhi.
Turnover: The company reported that it recorded revenue growth of 4x in FY22 to $100 million and has set itself the goal of crossing $300 million in revenue by FY23 end.
BharatPe is the 4th largest player in the UPI portion after Google Pay, PhonePe, and PayTm.
5 Cashfree
Company: Cashfree is an Indian payment and banking technology that helps businesses in India to collect payments online and also make payments. This company helps more than 50,000 businesses with payout, wage payouts and instant loan disbursements.
Services: Cashfree is used for multiple cases like wage payouts, bulk funds and vendor payouts. Currently, it is helping more than 1 lakh businesses to accept and send money.
CEO & headquarters: Cashfree Payments is located in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Akash Sinha is the Co-founder & CEO of Cashfree Payments. It was founded in 2015.
This company started as a fintech solution for e-commerce companies which wanted to digitize cash on delivery (CoD), Cashfree wanted to help customers with an app as an alternative to the point of sale (POS) machines.
Turnover: Cashfree Payments saw its revenue from operations grow 2.3 times to Rs 227.33 crore during FY21 as compared to Rs 99.6 crore in FY20.
Above mentioned fintech companies and other fintech startups like (website link) PeProp.Money are developing value-added solutions and features that can easily be integrated with banking platforms through application program interfaces and for streamlining the operational capabilities of the banks.
Delhi environment minister Gopal Rai shared that DPCC decided to take action against those project proponents who haven’t registered their construction and demolition sites on the C&D portal for self-assessment of dust control norms.
NEW DELHI: On Sunday, the Delhi environment minister informed that a special campaign will be conducted from 15 July to 30 regarding the registration of construction sites of more than 500 square meters on the construction and demolition (C&D) portal.
“Dust pollution arising from construction sites proves to be very harmful to the health of people. To work in this direction, the C&D portal was launched in October last year. Self-registration of all sites more than 500 square meters on this portal is mandatory. This portal also facilitates all DPCC officials to conduct site inspections, submit reports online and levy and collect fines.” shared Gopal Rai.
Gopal Rai also shared that 600 project sites have registered on the portal so far.
“DPCC has been directed to ensure that all project sites are registered on the portal. Agencies that are responsible for building plan sanctions are also required to ensure that the project proponents get themselves registered. Orders have also been issued to DPCC to submit targeted and achieved monthly reports of self-audit of all. DPCC has been directed to compulsorily register the project proponents on the web portal, self-audit their compliance with dust control rules, and upload self-declaration forms on the portal on fortnightly basis,” he further added.
Rai informed that for the project proponents who have not registered their construction and demolition sites on the C&D portal for self-assessment of dust control norms, strict actions will be taken against them.
“The self-assessment portal was launched in October last year as it was difficult to visit all construction and demolition sites and monitor the compliance of dust control norms. Apart from self-declaration, provision of video fencing with remote connectivity will also have to be made at the construction site,” he added further.
An official informed that around 100 structures, including 15 construction houses were demolished in the presence of police.
GURUGRAM: On Thursday, the town and country planning department demolished three illegal colonies in Bhondsi and Naya Gaon.
Amit Madholia, the District town planner, informed that the demolition and restoration drive was carried out in the revenue estate of two villages. Sohna tehsildar Shikha was the duty magistrate and 100 policemen were present during the drive. “During the demolition, 78 plinth level structures, 15 under-construction houses, eight boundary walls, four commercial shops were razed in three illegal colonies” he informed.
According to the DTCP norms, the land falls within the Urban Area limit of Gurgaon “The Section 3 of Haryana Act no. 8 of 1975 provides that the land owner shall get a licence from DTCP before carving out a colony within the prescribed ‘Urban Area.’ Section 7 (i) of the act prohibits subdivision intention to sub division of land for carving out the colony. Section 7 (ii) prohibits construction in a colony for which license under section 3 has not been granted,” complaint said.
Madholia informed “The offenders have violated the norms by subdividing land for the purpose of colony. The offenders are deliberately continuing with the contravention of provision of Haryana Act of 1975 and rules.”
He shared that violation of the Act is a punishable offense with imprisonment of up to 3 years. The department will soon register a police complaint against the offenders.
“We will write to the police to stop development of unauthorized colonies,” he added.
Gandhinagar is Gujarat’s new capital city and it is located on the west bank of the Sabarmati River, 464 km. away from Mumbai. This city is also famous as the financial capital of India. This city presents the spacious and well organized look of an architecturally integrated city.
Gandhinagar is named after the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi.This city is well planned and all the areas in the city are isolated into various sectors. It is the greenest capital city in the whole Asia. Economy of Gandhinagar depends on services in the public sector, textiles, electronics, office stationery and agriculture. The small and medium scale industries are rapidly growing in the city. The grand Akshardham Temple, built with 6,000 tonnes of pink sandstone lies at the heart of the city and is the most prominent temple in the region.
Education
Residents of Gandhinagar don’t have to go anywhere for education as there are so many famous institutes located in the city, this city has the best schools and universities which offer a wide variety of courses. There are institutes like Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar and other similar institutes.
Infrastructure and development
It is a very good locality and well connected with the other parts of the state. Gandhinagar is well connected by trains, buses and public transports. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport located in Ahmedabad is 18 km away from the city, giving both local and worldwide flights.
Gandhinagar is India’s first smart city and it is the second planned city after chandigarh. This city provides a high-quality life to its citizens. Experts say that this city’s real market is performing at its best and it’s never a bad time to invest here.
Public
According to the residents, the government hospitals of Gandhi provide good and inexpensive facilities and the healthcare sector has developed a lot in the city.
Employment opportunities
There are plenty of job opportunities in Gandhinagar, public sector and private sector because it is a capital city and small and medium scale industries are rapidly growing there.
Crime rates
This city is considered safest by the citizens despite being a developed and well planned city. The crime rate here is around 23.53, which is very low. Residents voted it as the best city for womens to live and work in.
Cost of living
Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad are twin cities but Ganadhinagar is more affordable.
As compared to cities like Mumbai, Noida, Delhi and Bangalore, Gandhinrar is much cheaper.
The cost of living here starts from 10,000 per month and goes up to 100,000 per month, solely depending on your standard of living you will get 1 BHK on rent within the budget of 6000-8000 and 2BHK in the budget of 8000 to 15000.
If you are planning to invest then you will get 1BHK around 45-48 lakhs and 2BHK around 58 lakh to 65 lakh.
CAG criticized the Delhi government’s exercise to select beneficiaries who met the eligibility criteria for the scheme.
NEW DELHI: Delhi government’s affordable scheme to provide affordable housing to the city’s poor people, living in slum clusters failed according to the Comptroller and Auditor General‘s report on “Social, General and Economic Sectors (Non-Public Sector Undertakings) of Union Territory of Delhi” in the year ended March 2018.
The review of projects under the Delhi government’s affordable housing scheme for the urban poor under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission was one of the components of CAG‘s performance audit of various Delhi government departments.
The audit also revealed that all 14 housing projects conceptualized by Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) and Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) were limited to only 4 districts even though there were 461 of 675 targeted JJ clusters that need to be provided in situ rehabilitation. “Also, instead of small clusters evenly spread all over Delhi, housing projects with a large number of dwelling units were planned,” the report said.
CAG shared that the government could identify only 5,483 beneficiaries, of which only 1,864 were rehabilitated to the dwelling units constructed till August 2018.
CAG shared “Due to the delay in identifying beneficiaries, more than 90% of the 28,344 dwelling units completed till June 2018 at a cost of Rs. 1,101.4 crore were lying unallotted, unoccupied and vulnerable to deterioration. The objectives of the scheme remained unfulfilled even after 10 years of its launch and one year of its closure. This was mainly due to deficiency in planning and execution of projects and poor progress in the identification of beneficiarie.”
Residents suggested that the authority shouldn’t rent out these towers to the government department instead of private companies or banks.
NOIDA: The Greater Noida Authority has decided to rent out one tower in its knowledge park 4 office, for all the commercial activities. Authority also issued a tender to hire a contractor to manage parking on its office premises. Authority shared that soon visitors will be charged for parking at the authority office.
“There are two towers having 15 stores each. While one of them is being used for administrative purposes, another has been lying vacant. A request for proposal is being made in this regard for renting out the tower. We held a meeting on this recently, and will soon decide about the rent and the years of the lease. A private company or a bank can use our premises.” informed GNIDA CEO, Surendra Singh.
Residents said that towers should be rented out to the government department “Earlier the Authority operated from Sector Gamma 2, which was next to the registry department. The registry department still functions from there. Ideally, the registry department should be shifted to the Authority office premises,” shared Alok Singh, a resident of Sector Alpha 1.
According to the tender documents, the parking charges for two-wheelers will be Rs. 10 for the first hour and Rs. 5 for every subsequent hour up to a maximum of Rs. 40 daily. The four-wheelers will be charged Rs. 20 for the first hour, and Rs. 10 for every subsequent hour up to a maximum of Rs. 100 daily.
As per the tender documents, it will be the contractor’s responsibility to ensure effective management of the parking lot by hiring manpower and installing boom barriers. The contractor will also ensure the management of traffic within the parking lot to avoid chaotic situations such as gridlocks.
During an inspection, authorities found that many developers are still using groundwater even though authorities banned such use.
NOIDA: The Greater Noida Authority decided to impose heavy fines on developers and builders, who will extract and use groundwater. Authority will soon allow only treated water use at construction sites.
CEO Surendra Singh has ordered the sewer wing to make provision and implement the provision of making use of water from sewage treatment plants (STPs) in the construction sector as soon as possible. If any person is found exploiting groundwater after provision, they will be heavily fined and legal action might be taken against them, too, Surendra added.
Most of the areas in Greater Noida are in a ‘critical’ zone for groundwater levels. A report by the UP groundwater department revealed that the water table has depleted by nearly 6.09 meters between 2016 and 2020, sliding from 6.66 meters in 2016 to 12.75 meters in 2020.
“Buying treated water from STPS for construction works is not expensive. The authority is providing 1,000 litres of water for just Rs 7. Anyone who wants treated water can submit an application form at the water department or reception counter of the authority. Once payment is received, the applicant will get permission to take water from a STP through a tanker.” informed Kapil Singh, in charge of the sewer department.
There are 4 STPs with a total capacity of 174 MLD (million litres per day) in Noida. These STPs treat 109 MLD of sewage. The largest one is in Kasna and treats 90 MLD of sewage. The STP at Ecotech 2 treats 5 MLD sewage. The STP at Ecotech 3 treats 12 MLD, and the Badalpur STP treats 2 MLD sewage.
The government decided to discontinue rebates on circle rates. The government made this decision because the impact of the covid pandemic has subsided and the economy of the city is developing fast.
NEW DELHI: On Thursday, officials informed that property transactions will be costlier because the government decided to discontinue the 20 per cent rebate on circle rates from 1st July.
The revenue department of the Delhi government shared “The competent authority has decided to discontinue the relaxation of 20 per cent in circle rates beyond June 30. The circle rates notified on September 20, 2014, will be applicable from July 1,”
The Delhi government introduced a rebate scheme to help the economy to recover after the pandemic scheme was implemented in February 2021. Later the rebate scheme was extended till 30 June by the government.
Revenue department officials informed that properties in Delhi are divided into eight categories from ‘A’ to ‘H’. While posh areas fall under the ‘A’ category, the least developed areas come under the ‘H’ category.
The officials shared that the existing circle rate of land in ‘A’ category areas had gone down from Rs. 7.74 lakh per square meter to Rs. 6.19 lakh.
A senior government officer said “The revenue department was asked by the minister in charge to suggest if the rebate needed to be extended or discontinued. It was found that the economy is recovering with all its segments returning back to the pre-Covid levels with increased revenue generation,”
He further added that the rebate was allowed to all categories of properties in housing, commercial and industrial segments to grow the real estate sector and help the recovery of industrial and trade activities.
It was a successful scheme as it raised the numbers of property transactions and increased stamp duty revenue despite the 20 per cent rebate on circle rates.
This scheme boosted the finances of the Delhi government with property registration revenue rising from Rs 3,552 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 4,997 crore in 2021-22.
Vanke is a prominent residential real estate developer in China. It is engaged in developing, managing and selling properties across more than 60 mainland Chinese cities.
HONG KONG: China Vanke Co informed that the property market has bottomed in the short term, with an evident month-on-month rise in sales in the previous month.
Chairman of China’s No.2 developer Yu Liang shared that recovery will be slow.
Yu Liang‘s comments helped raise the mainland’s CSI Real Estate Index up 6%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index also rose over 1%
On Tuesday, At China Vanke’s annual general meeting Yu shared that he had experienced the high pressure in his career in the year 2022.
Yu Liang saw some recovery in the secondary housing market in June, with 50% of first and second-tier cities recording higher asking prices.
“In June, from the situation so far, I think there would be a relatively obvious rise month-on-month.” Yu Liang commented.
Central and local government also helped in the recovery by easing measures and partly boosted by pent-up demand following months of COVID-related restrictions, he added.
Authorities are trying their best to boost weak demand after a fall in sales, affected by tight COVID-19 curbs and a slowdown in the world’s second-biggest economy.
According to Official data, property sales by floor area in the first five months fell 23.6% compared to the previous year. although the pace of the fall slowed in May for the first time in three months.
“The market in the short term has bottomed. I didn’t use ‘rebounded’, but rather ‘recovered’. Recovery will still take time,” Yu further said.
