Realty firm
Omaxe has shelved its Rs 80,000 crore investment plan aimed at developing 10
lakh affordable houses across the country over a period of five years. “The
project could not take off after the slowdown impacted all the developers in
2008. We tried to develop some houses at some locations… The project is shelved
now,” said Rohtas Goel, chairman and MD, Omaxe. In May, 2008, the company had
announced an elaborate plan to build 10 lakh affordable houses for low-income
consumers across tier II and III cities, at a price ranging between Rs 3 lakh
and Rs 15 lakh, over a period of five years. The National Capital-based
developer had tied-up with farmers in Gujarat and Maharashtra to acquire land
for developing the affordable houses, he added.
“However, it
did not finally materialise,” Goel said. He, however, declined to divulge if
the company had put in any money in initiating the project. The 2008-09 global
financial crisis had hit the realty sector hard and the same is expected again
under the current economic environment. Omaxe had formed a subsidiary, National
Affordable Housing and Infrastructure Ltd (NAFHIL), for the low-cost housing
project and had also initiated an international design competition, besides
publishing advertisements. Later, the company divested 51 per cent stake in
NAFHIL to a promoter group firm. The company had initiated dialogues with the
state governments in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in February 2008, to
implement the affordable housing project. It had also placed a concept plan for
consideration before the Union State Minister for Urban Housing at that time.
Goel had
said Omaxe would construct 800 million sq ft to develop 10 lakh housing units of
size starting from 300 sq ft to up to 1,500 sq ft. About 20,000 acre of land
would be required to develop the project. The company had planned to develop
5,000-10,000 housing units at every location over an area of about 100-200
acre. It had said it would sell these units through lottery system and would
charge only Rs 100-150 per sq ft as profit. It had identified Indore as the
first location for the proposed project with plans to develop 10,000 low-cost
homes at a 200-acre township at an investment of about Rs 1,000 crore. It
planned to offer the flats, sizes of which would have started from 350 sq ft,
for Rs 4-10 lakh. Similar projects were also planned in other locations such as
Raipur, Bhopal, Bareilly and Allahabad.
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