The layouts were laid without clearance and thus were declared ‘unauthorised’. The plots in the 19,000 layouts spread over urban and rural areas were mired and as per the sources, over 1 lakh acres are involved in these layouts.
In Andhra Pradesh, the town and country planning department has put registrations of over 19,000 layouts on hold in the state. The layouts were laid without clearance and thus were declared ‘unauthorised’.
Sources said that over 1 lakh acres area is involved in unauthorised layouts and the transactions of plots in these 19,000 layouts spread over urban and rural areas were stalled.
The state government had decided to allow registrations only after payment of regulatory fees and correction of prescribed rules.
The town and country planning department has recently circulated details of the layouts without clearance to the registrations and stamps department to hold the registrations in specific survey numbers.
The recently circular issued by commissioner of registrations and stamps with a directive to stop registrations in unauthorised layouts had sent currents in the state.
People who had bought the plots are under stress over the sudden halt of transactions. Subsequently, the state government clarified that registrations will be continued for the plots which were purchased before the cut-off date, January, 7, 2020.
As per the Expression of Interest (EoI) floated by the RBI, it is proposes to acquire an office space on a long-term lease basis for a minimum 40,000 sq. ft. carpet area located in and around BKC within a radius of 5 km from its existing BKC office.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is planning to take up an office space of up to 50,000 square feet on lease in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) and South Mumbai.
The RBI said the acquirement of office premises is projected on long-term lease basis with at least 10,000 square feet carpet area located in and around South Mumbai within a radius of 5 km from its other office.
The building should project a professional and aesthetically pleasing appearance and should be approved for office use, the central bank added.
Cushman & Wakefield India Pvt Ltd has been appointed as the realty consultant agency for handling the lease work related to the commercial office premises in Mumbai, the RBI said.
Gagan Randev, Executive Director, India Sotheby’s International Realty mentioned BKC to financial capital- Mumbai’s most wanted office destination sought after by major global banks and other financial institutions over the last 7-8 years and its high time RBI has its presence there.
The demand for office space in BKC, even though it has much higher rentals than South Mumbai, outstrips it by a ratio of 5:1 as echoed by the data provided by CRE Matrix, a data analytics platform for residential and commercial real estate.
“This is because of the quality of buildings, quality of infrastructure and the go-to financial hub which has now been created. The attractiveness of BKC will continue to be robust with the recent flyovers opened and the opening of Maker Maxity Mall as well,” Randev added.
According to Colliers India, average rental in Grade A office space of BKC is about 30 per cent higher than similar office space in South Mumbai. While per square feet monthly rental of Grade A office space in BKC is Rs 276.8, it is Rs 212.2 in South Mumbai.
Karan Singh Sodi, Regional Managing Director (Mumbai and Ahmedabad), JLL India, said South Mumbai traditionally has been a micro-market with limited overall supply cumulating to approximately 7 million square feet of Grade A and B buildings, with the majority being more than 30 years old, as there is scarce availability of land for development unlike any other front office micro-markets of Mumbai.
“Further, the majority of the buildings are strata owned thereby limiting the availability of single owned Grade A office premises with requirement size as published by the Reserve Bank of India,” Singh said. Singh further said BKC has been at the centre stage as far as front office demand is concerned in Mumbai.
Sanjay Dutt, TATA Realty and Infrastructure MD and CEO said that the company has formed a partnership with CPPIB to develop and own commercial real estate assets as they are upbeat about future potential of office market across major Indian cities.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) will invest Rs 2,600 crore for a 49 percent stake in TATA Realty and Infrastructure’s two premium commercial office projects at Chennai and Gurugram. For the future growth the joint venture sees a possibility to further invest Rs 2,000 crore to buy land and completed assets as part of the deal.
TATA Realty and Infrastructure MD and CEO Sanjay Dutt in an interview with PTI, said that the company has formed a partnership with CPPIB to develop and own commercial real estate assets as they are upbeat about future potential of office market across major Indian cities.
“We want to grow our commercial real estate business. Our target is that we will develop 45 million square feet area in the next 5-7 years,” Dutt said.
TATA Realty has completed commercial portfolio of 7.5 million square feet while 14 million square feet is under various stages of design and development from its existing land bank.
“We want to invest at least Rs 2,000 crore to buy new land parcels. For this, we have formed a partnership with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board,” Dutt elaborated.
The deal was facilitated by property consultant Anarock.
Under the partnership, CPPIB will acquire 49 per cent stake in two projects — Intellion Park Chennai with 4.6 million square feet of gross leasable area and Intellion Edge Gurugram having 1.8 million square feet of gross leasable area. The Chennai project is fully complete while the Gurugram project is 50 per cent complete.
“The total aggregate equity value of the joint venture will be Rs 5,300 crore (Canadian dollar 866 million),” Dutt said and also added that CPPIB has plans to further invest Rs 2,600 crore (Canadian dollar 438 million) as equity.
49 percent goes to CPPIB and Tata Realty will hold the remaining 51 per cent stake.
Dutt mentioned the total gross asset value of these two projects will be Rs 8,000 crore (Canadian dollar 1.3 billion) after fully completed.
The joint venture partners intend to further allocate capital investment of up to Rs 2,000 crore (Canadian dollar 333 million) for future acquisitions of land parcels and completed assets.
“If there are good opportunities, we may allocate more funds,” Dutt said.
He said the vision of this joint venture is to provide world-class sustainable office space solutions to a diverse set of businesses with investments from CPPIB. This will enable the opening up of new business opportunities for the company and accelerate its current growth, Dutt said.
The joint venture will target stabilised and development assets, aiming to reach over Rs 5,000 crore (Canadian dollar 800 million) in assets under management.
“We believe in building centres of excellence that provide tenants with high-quality spaces that enable businesses to grow and evolve,” Dutt said.
Hari Krishna V, Managing Director, Head of Real Estate India, CPP Investments, said, “This new relationship with TATA Realty and Infrastructure provides an excellent avenue to explore opportunities in the fast-growing commercial real estate sector.”
TATA Realty Infrastructure is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Sons. It has an extensive portfolio of over 50 projects across 15 cities.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) is a professional investment management organization that manages the fund in the best interest of the more than 21 million contributors and beneficiaries of the Canada Pension Plan.
On December 31, 2021, the Fund totalled Canadian dollar 550.4 billion.
The ED has found buyers those who booked the flats with Guru Ashish Construction, a subsidiary of housing firm HDIL, which was implementing the project has fake addresses and has issued summons to those who booked the flats.
The ED Enforcement Directorate is probing the case of money laundering over a hundred flats which were booked by proxies in the proposed Meadows building, the saleable component in the Patra chawl redevelopment project.
The developer is suspected to have booked flats for prominent individuals on dummy names after charging a nominal amount or without any payment in lieu of their help in facilitating the fraud.
In the meanwhile Mhada has taken over the development project in Goregaon after putting off the deal with Guru Ashish Construction.
Manipulating an agreement (see box) to redevelop Patra chawl in connivance with Mhada officials, Guru Ashish in 2010 launched the saleable component, the Meadows building, first. The developer collected Rs 138 crore from those who booked flats. Some of these people booked the flats under a dummy name and paid only a nominal amount, found the ED investigation. Flats were booked for some others without any payment, and all these people gave dummy names and fake residential addresses.
Through a tripartite agreement between the Patra chawl society, Mhada and Guru Ashish, the developer was supposed to construct 775 sq. ft. built-up area flats for each of the tenants and over 3,000 flats for Mhada within 36 months. It could then construct private buildings on the remaining plot for sale to recover his cost and earn profit.
In 2011, Guru Ashish also sold different portions of the plot to seven influential companies and prominent builders along with the FSI and collected Rs 1,034 crore. One of these prominent builders paid Rs 56 crore construction-related municipal charges to the BMC directly on behalf of Guru Ashish on the instruction of Rakesh Wadhawan, promoter of HDIL.
Rakesh Wadhawan and his son Sarang were partners in Guru Ashish along with liaison agent Pravin Raut, who was coordinating with Mhada for the Patra chawl redevelopment. Afterwards, Raut exited the company and got Rs 95 crore from HDIL.
The money collected by Guru Ashish was utilised for part construction of the project, repayment of loans of HDIL group companies and rent payment of the tenants. In October 2019, the ED held Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan in a money laundering case connected to the Rs 4,355-crore Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank scam. It recently filed the Patra chawl case against them and Raut and filed a chargesheet too.
As per the court order on August 31 last year, the demolition of the Supertech twin towers which in violation of building laws and was encroaching upon an area earmarked for green cover.
A series of test blasts were carried out at Supertech‘s twin towers site on Sunday to determine the volume of explosives that would be needed for demolishing the two separate 100-metre tall structures, officials said.
As per the court order on August 31 last year, the demolition of the Supertech twin towers which in violation of building laws and was encroaching upon an area earmarked for green cover
The experts engaged in the test blasts mentioned that the structures are “very solid” and they may have to use “more explosives” as otherwise estimated to raze the buildings down. The demolition of the Apex and Ceyane towers is scheduled for May 22.
Earlier, it was estimated that 2,500 to 4,000 kg of explosives would be needed to demolish the twin towers but the “quantity is likely to go up” and they would “need more time” to plan out the final working, an expert told PTI.
The test blasts were held in the presence of representatives of Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) at Roorkee in Uttarakhand, Noida Authority, Supertech, Edifice Engineering and Jet Demolitions.
Mumbai-based Edifice Engineering and South Africa-based Jet Demolitions are private agencies assigned the demolition job.
The test blasts were carried out with less than four kg of explosives in the Apex tower. The explosives were placed on five columns in the basement of the building and one on the 13th floor, officials said.
“The objective of the test blasts was to determine the total amount of explosive required for the complete demolition and the procedure to be followed to control the flying dust as a result of the demolition,” the Noida Authority spokesperson said in a statement.
Joe Brinkmann, Managing Director of Jet Demolitions, told reporters that “The whole purpose was to get precise and specific information so that we can fine-tune our blasting design. Everything went off nicely. We got very good results. We are very happy with what we see,”
“Now we will be studying the results over the next few days after that we will work on our designs so we can then finalise our designs in next 10-15 days,” Brinkmann said.
He said it was a difficult and challenging task but they have the right crew, right work plan and will meet the challenge. Different quantities of explosives were used at different places and different levels of protection were used.
Noida Authority’s General Manager (Planning) Ishtiaq Ahmed said, “We have taken the environmental management plan from Edifice Engineering and all protection measures suggested in the plan will be taken. We are taking the PM 2.5 and PM 10 measurements regularly and we will take care of environment management.”
Ahmed said the readings of vibrations and pollution caused during the test blasts have been taken and it would be analysed over 10-15 days and the other details would be available after the detailed analysis only.
Utkarsh Mehta, Partner at Edifice Engineering, said a team from IIT Chennai was also present during the test blasts to monitor and analyse the vibrations caused by them. A team of geo-structural experts from Cochin has also been hired by Edifice Engineering along with IIT Chennai group for the monitoring, he said.
“The vibration monitoring was done at six points – four near the GAIL gas pipelines and one each at Emerald Court society and ATS Green Village society. Their results do not come immediately and take some time,” Mehta told reporters.
Meanwhile, residents of Supertech Emerald Court society expressed satisfaction after the test blast.
“I was downstairs but my family, including wife, parents and two minor children were inside the home when the test blasts were conducted. The test was successful and the May 22 result would also be good hopefully. I am more confident now after seeing the test blasts,” Gaurav Raghav, who lives in one of Emerald Court buildings which is very close to the Apex Tower, said.
The residents said they had followed all precautionary measures as advised by demolition agencies like switching-off air conditioners and not hanging in the balconies at the test blast time.
UBS Teotia (80), who had moved court for the demolition of the twin towers, “I am very satisfied with the test blast today.”
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Noida) Elamaran G said adequate police force, ambulance, fire tenders were arranged at the time of test blast.
“A platoon of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) was kept ready for the test blasts while over 50 police personnel of Gautam Budh Nagar were also on duty at the time,” the officer said.
The road stretch in front of the twin towers and Emerald Court was kept closed by the police for a brief period ahead and after the test blast as precautionary measure.
As a part of initiative to settle the slum dwellers the DDA had taken up redevelopment of three clusters in Kalkaji Extension — Bhoomiheen Camp, Navjeevan Camp and Jawaharlal Nehru Camp.
In its first phase of developing 2,800 EWS flats at Kalkaji Extension as part of an in situ slum redevelopment initiative, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has initiated the second phase of the project with 5,382 flats to be readied for slum dwellers in a public-private-partnership mode.
DDA had taken up in situ slum redevelopment of three clusters in Kalkaji Extension —Bhoomiheen Camp , Navjeevan Camp and Jawaharlal Nehru Camp. While the process of relocating the first batch of slum dwellers to EWS flats is underway, it has floated tenders for rehabilitation of residents of Navjeevan Camp and Jawaharlal Nehru Camp.
As part of the PPP project, there would be a specified covered area, along with development of sites for various facilities like internal water supply, sewerage, solid waste management, internal roads, storm water drains, internal and external electrification, horticulture work and other community services.
The project is spread across 19 acres of land, the private developer would use about 15.8 acres (83%) for slum redevelopment and the remaining 3.2 acres (17%) can be taken by the developer as the remunerative component of the project. DDA has proposed a floor area ratio of 300 for the commercial component of the project, while 4,450 square metres would be designated for social infrastructure, like community halls, health centres etc.
As per the details of the tender, once the rehabilitation project is complete within the stipulated three-year construction period, in that event the developer would be given the right to recover its investment through the sale of the remunerative land parcel, which is being set up at 17% of the proposed site. It will be given to the developer on a freehold basis for development according to prevalent land use and norms. The land then belongs to the developer and he will have the rights to sell his portion of land and the revenue earned will be in his name solely.
In this way DDA gets hold of the developed project for free and gives the same to EWS category citizens.
The area from which slum dwellers would be shifted to the 2,800 flats constructed by DDA on a vacant land parcel would be cleared for creating the next phase of the project. DDA has created 14-storey tall residential towers, which would house slum dwellers living in the nearby areas. Recently, DDA had decided the eligibility of 679 households where documents were found to be complete. A draw of lots was conducted on February 17 for allotment of flats. For the remaining households of Bhoomiheen Camp, deficiency letters were issued to the slum dwellers requesting them to submit the necessary documents. All eligible slum dwellers would be provided the flats on payment of Rs 1.4 lakh, including Rs 30,000 as maintenance charges for five years.
The money it has raised will be directed to double its PAN India commercial real estate presence, get started in Tier II cities and also to ramp up technology integration.
IndiQube, a premier flexible workspace provider, has successfully raised $30 million in funding from the company’s promoters, WestBridge Capital and Ashish Gupta, angel investor. $17 million out of total of $30 million has been infused by the promoters.
The company has decided to use the proceeds to double its PAN India commercial real estate presence, venture into Tier II cities and to ramp up technology integration.
Rishi Das, co-founder of the company in his statement said, “Over the next two years, we plan to more than double our PAN India footprint to over 10 million sq. ft. venture into 15+ Tier II cities and further ramp up technology integration, creating a consistent experience for our clients.”
IndiQube hasIt recently stepped into Coimbatore market by signing up over 1 lakh sq. ft. “We had an amazing year adding 100+ clients to our portfolio with over 1.2 million sq ft in incremental signups,” said Meghna Agarwal, co-founder of the company.
Founded in 2015, the company has over 4.5 million sq. ft. of office space in 60+ properties spread across eight cities.
The construction of 2.02 lakh houses in 8 states has been approved by the ministry of housing & urban affairs (MoHUA) under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-Urban).
Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are the states where these urban homes will be constructed under PMAY-U
The decision was taken during the 59th meeting of central sanctioning and monitoring committee (CSMC) under PMAY-Urban, which was chaired by Manoj Joshi, secretary, MoHUA and are proposed to be constructed under beneficiary led construction (BLC) and affordable housing in partnership (AHP) verticals of PMAY-Urban mission.
Joshi discussed the issues pertaining to grounding and construction of houses in different States under different verticals of PMAY-Urban. He also reviewed the pace of completion of houses in the states and directed the officials to expedite the grounding and construction process.
Construction of PMAY-Urban houses are in various stages. The total number of sanctioned houses under PMAY-Urban is now 115.4 Lakh; of which around 95 Lakh have been grounded for construction and around 56.3 Lakh have been completed and delivered to the beneficiaries.
The total investment under the mission is Rs 7.56 lakh crore, with central assistance of Rs 1.89 lakh crore. So far, central assistance amounting to Rs 1.25 lakh crore has already been released.
On Monday DLF confirmed a proposed investment of Rs 550 crore for constructing one-million-square-feet office building in Chennai for Standard Chartered Global Business Services’ largest campus globally.
Real estate giant DLF on Monday announced an investment of around Rs 550 crore to construct a one-million-square-feet office building for Standard Chartered Global Business Services’ largest campus globally. The foundation stone for the project was laid down by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin in ‘ DLF Downtown ‘ project at Taramani in Chennai.
DLF had pre-leased 7.7 lakh sq. ft. office space to Standard Chartered Global Business Services (GBS) in October 2020, and offered to take the remaining area.
“We are developing a one-million-square-feet building, which has two blocks, for Standard Chartered GBS. The total construction cost is estimated at around Rs 550 crore,” managing director of DLF Rental Business Sriram Khattar quoted.
The DLF Downtown-Chennai project, is a huge project which is spread over 27 acres and comprises of 6.8 million sq. ft. area. It is being developed by DLF Cyber City Developers Ltd (DCCDL) with an investment of Rs 5,000 crore.
DCCDL is a joint venture between DLF and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC.
The construction will be done in phases, DLF is constructing a total of 3.3 million square feet area in the first phase including one million square feet building for Standard Chartered.
The construction of 2.3 million square feet has started and will be completed by next financial year ending. The Standard Chartered campus is proposed to be completed by mid-2024.
Khattar told the media the company has its presence in the state for the last 17 years and operates the largest IT SEZ ‘DLF Cybercity, Chennai’ at Manapakkam comprising 7.2 million square feet area.
This SEZ has contributed a cumulative export revenue of about Rs 84,000 crore since its inception and around 70,000 professionals are working, he added.
Khattar said, “Once DLF Downtown is completed and operational, DLF will have a footprint of about 14 million square feet of commercial workspaces in the city, making it the second-largest market after Gurugram”
He showed enthusiasm about investments in Tamil Nadu as it is now being regarded as a fast emerging leading global hub for IT/ ITeS, manufacturing and R&D.
“A development like DLF Downtown in a location like Taramani should generate the income of Rs 700-750 crore when fully functional,” he said, adding that around 70,000 employees will work from DLF Downtown Chennai.
DLF Offices Executive Director Amit Grover said: “The project is designed with high-end specifications and has been awarded a Platinum LEED Certification by US Green Building Council.”
Matthew Norris, global head at Standard Chartered GBS, said: “We envision that our largest campus globally at DLF Downtown Taramani will define the future of work with its people-centric design around hybrid work patterns, further enhancing employee wellness, engagement and productivity with sustainable measures.”
BBMP notice said if the owners could not submit the required documents by Monday evening, BBMP officials will on Tuesday (March 15) and declare it unauthorised.
Last Friday, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) issued notice to thousands of flat owners in Bengaluru, they have been asked to submit a list of documents within three days failing which their properties would be declared unauthorised. Since the notice was served on a Friday, most owners have struggled to comply and are now panicking.
N Praveen Kumar, a flat owner in Rajarajeshwari Nagar, while speaking to Economic Times mentioned that he received the notice which said the civic body could not find a sanctioned building plan for his flat in its own records and asked him to submit a horde of documents including khata, sanctioned building plan, building commencement certificate, occupancy certificate and tax receipts to the sub-division’s assistant executive engineer within three days.
He voiced fear over the notice which said if he failed to submit the documents by Monday evening, BBMP officials will visit his flat on Tuesday (March 15) and declare it unauthorised. Kumar could not comply since his property is mortgaged and the bank was closed on Saturday and Sunday.
“When I called BBMP officials on Monday, they said they are just doing their duty and they have no option but to declare my flat unauthorised,” Kumar said.
While BBMP is still collating data on how many such notices were issued, officials put it in the ballpark of about 10,000.
Vikram Rai, secretary, Bangalore Apartments’ Federation (BAF), in his interview mentioned that flat owners have been calling non-stop. “The three-day time frame is too short as many owners are yet to get documents from developers and others are in the process of collecting them from authorities. We will request BBMP to extend the deadline. ”
BBMP’s is working on high court order which stated that BBMP has to sumbit a compliance report on unauthorised constructions in Bengaluru and what it has done to demolish them. The report needs to be submitted by March 15 by BBMP
The high court, which took up a suo motu public interest litigation in 2019, had given the civic agency three months’ time from December 11, 2021 to demolish unauthorised buildings. It also ordered BBMP chief commissioner Gaurav Gupta to appear before it on March 15 with the compliance report.
While there are an estimated 28 lakh constructions with deviations from the sanctioned plan or bylaws, BBMP had dithered over the past three months on conducting a survey and is rushing to meet the HC deadline. In December, the BBMP told the HC that it had surveyed 1. 3 lakh unauthorised buildings and issued notice to 16,286 property owners.
“It [survey and notices] is a continuous process since we have to update the court about unauthorised constructions,” Gupta said. “People need not panic as the intent is not to harass them. Our officials will help them if there are practical issues. ”
