The 2010 Commonwealth Games scheduled to be held from October 3-14 in New Delhi is likely to give a significant boost to various sectors, especially the Indian realty sector, which plunged to deep depths due to the global economic slowdown.

The real estate sector experienced early signs of revival during the second quarter of 2009-10, due to easing of liquidity crunch and increased enquiries for affordable housing. This prompted even well-known realty developers such as DLF and Unitech to invest massively in affordable housing units over the next few years. For instance, DLF plans to invest Rs 15,000 crore to construct 40,000 affordable housing units, while Unitech intends to build 10,000 apartments with a Rs 2,500-crore investment.

Commonwealth Games Village

The apartments coming up as a part of the Commonwealth Games Village, next to the Akshardham temple, is going to give the country’s realty sector a further fillip. According to me, these apartments will change the image of east Delhi and increase the value of new properties in east Delhi and bring satellite towns such as Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad at par with similar properties in central, west and south Delhi.

These apartments will be used to accommodate athletes during the course of the Commonwealth Games. Once it gets over, Emaar MGF, the developer of the Commonwealth Games Village, would hand over one-third of the total 1,268 flats to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the remaining 779 flats (for which bookings have already started) would be handed over to interested buyers. In the last one month, there has been a good response with about 200 people booking apartments at the Commonwealth Games village.

Property rates pick-up in east Delhi

Industry experts opine that the Commonwealth Games Village has also increased the property rates in the existing realty market in east Delhi and its adjoining areas. At present, the apartments that are priced at Rs 12,700 per square feet (sq ft) are expected to increase to Rs 15,500 per sq ft in the near future. Prices of these flats will vary according to the locations. For instance, a river-facing or a temple-facing flat will charge an extra Rs 500 per sq ft, while the extra charges for boulevard and sports complex facing flat is Rs 250 per sq ft.

In addition to this, the kind of infrastructure such as hotels, airport, flyovers, metro, and railway connectivity, among others that are coming up in the entire eastern part of the country’s capital city to supplement the Commonwealth Games 2010 has impacted property prices in the area to a large extent.

Commercial realty to show up

Of late, commercial realty is witnessing initial signs of recovery in some parts of the country, and the Commonwealth Games 2010 is expected to further lift the sector. The hotel realty space has already started experiencing a boom due to the Commonwealth Games, the biggest sporting event to be hosted by India since the 1982 Asian Games.

According to industry estimates, currently there is a requirement of around 30,000 hotel rooms in the National Capital Region (NCR) for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Apart from this, there is also a huge requirement for high-tech convention centres, quality restaurants and commercial plazas in the NCR to meet the requirements of around 40,000 visitors. This reflects huge growth potential for commercial realty developers. Currently, the NCR is already witnessing a 25-30% growth in real estate.

Rajender Bhati, general manager (corporate), Modern Buildtech Private Limited, a well-known Faridabad-based realty firm

Website: http://www.modernbuildtech.com/

E-mail: rajenderbhati75@gmail.com

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