Infrastructure may boost realty

Neeraj Bagga

 

 

 

Realty sector in Punjab has been reeling under a slowdown for the past over a year and the holy city’s is no exception. There are a number of reasons for this. There is a glut of supply here as several townships have come up in and around the city in the past decade. But these ambitious projects have not found favour with buyers and investors so far. Most of the plots, villas and apartments in these are lying unsold and the very few that have been sold are yet to see any progress.

 

According to local property consultants, the city’s vicinity actually has a number of ghost cities as families are not moving in there, a dangerous trend for real estate growth. Many months were wasted last year over the status of property tax and extension in regularisation of illegal colonies. The SAD-BJP coalition government has also not shown any interest in infusing a fresh lease of life in the sector. On the other hand, property tax and uncertainty over regularisation of unauthorised colonies have had a negative impact on the sale and prices of property.

 

The real estate developers and investors are banking upon the union government to allocate two major infrastructure and industrial promotion projects — smart city and Amritsar Delhi Kolkata Industrial Corridor (ADKIC). While the latter has already been announced, the former is yet to be formally announced.

 

According to president of the Indo-Foreign Chamber of Commerce BK Bajaj, ADKIC, an industrial zone spanning 20 cities across seven states, is set to become an engine of economic as well as real estate growth as it will bind diverse cultures, linguistic groups, ethnic identities living on massive spread of the Indo-Gangetic plane.

 

The Holy City has maintained sustained business ties with the towns falling under the proposed ADKIC.

 

The Industrial Corridor project envisages a major expansion of infrastructure and industry, including industrial clusters and rail, road, port and air connectivity along the route. This will certainly bolster trade and economic ties and will see a spurt in manufacturing.

 

According to Bajaj, smart city may invite taxes like surcharge on fuel, commercial vehicles, stamp duty, property tax, and an urban tax on purchase of new vehicles. In return, these cities will be high-tech with uninterrupted power and water supply, online delivery of all public services, a digitally-enabled transportation, healthcare, education, utilities, energy grid and real estate in cities, digital security surveillance, modernisation of the public distribution system, etc. LED streetlights to be instantly connected to and controlled by a remote lighting management system will be another attractive feature.

 

Growth of economic activity means better monetary status of people and more disposable income. This invariably means more investment in the realty sector and increase in demand for property. This is the reason that makes the industrial corridor and smart city status favourable developments for the realty sector.

 

Rajan Bedi, importer and exporter with interest in the real estate industry, the city of the Golden Temple is strategically situated. It is already well-connected by road to Afghanistan via Pakistan.

 

In order to facilitate a swift exchange of cargo, a state-of-the-art dry land port is already under operation at the Attari-Wagah joint checkpost being jointly looked after by border guards of India and Pakistan. A similar trade facilitation centre is expected to come up across the border in Pakistan. The Amritsar Airport, officially known as Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport, has air links to Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, and Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan. Uzbekistan Airways and Turkmenistan Airlines have flights between the city and their capital cities.

 

Now, the city requires comprehensive infrastructure, knowledge-based institutes churning out professionals as per the available industry in and around the Holy City.

 

The Centre allocated Indian Institute of Management (IIM) to Amritsar. For this, the state government has arranged around 200 acres of panchayat land in the border sub-divisions of Ajnala and Baba Bakala, nearly 50 km from the city.

 

According to Navdeep Singh Narang, vice-president of the Alpha G: Corp Development, “Both the projects will result in the growth of the real estate sector. The same will generate opportunities in terms of employment and surplus money. Organised realty groups will benefit immensely.”

 

The industrial and freight corridor will result in the growth of infrastructure in terms of the road and railway network. The group is developing a residential integrated township Alpha International City in Amritsar and is in the process of setting up a state-of-the-art industrial project also.

 

According to him, the price correction is visible in those segments of the secondary market, which were regularised from previous authorised colonies, but do not have matching infrastructure of well planned and developed colonies. He says there is no price correction in the primary market.

 

Even as Amritsar is yet to be formally incorporated in the ambitious smart city project of the Narendra Modi government but local bodies minister Anil Joshi said so far he’s attended one meeting over the matter and strongly put up their case and is positive of getting the same. In Punjab, apart from Amritsar, Ludhiana is also expected to be developed as smart city.

 

Earlier, coming up of the international airport and integrated checkpost, also known as dry land port, brought various colonisers even of national repute to the border town. About 60 colonies, including 10 giant ones spread over 100 acres each, were set up primarily on the periphery of the city and beyond it. These colonies are roughly spread over 700 acres. These builders include well-known developers like Ansal Buildwell, AIPL Ambuja, Impact Gardens and Tiwari Coloniser, Metcalf, etc.

 

Offering state-of-the-art civic amenities with residential plots and flats, along with foolproof security, the real estate developers competed with one other to secure the largest piece of the realty pie.

 

However, even after years, grey areas remain and builders have been waiting for a boost to the industry to overcome saturation point in the real estate sector.