Hyderabad realty gets boost from outstation buyers
It’s the migrant population of Hyderabad that is now queuing up to buy dream homes in the city. Unperturbed by the T’ s entiment which is keeping locals away from the property market, outsiders are cashing in on the revised realty rates on offer. Rough market estimates suggest that at least 70% of clientele comprise those from outside the state.
In the last one year, Aparna Constructions sold 350 units in its `Aparna Sarovar’ project in Nalagandla, of which 273 were bought by non-Hyderabadi customers. Even its second project `Cyber Commune’, in the same area, saw as many as 185 non-locals buying apartments as against a meager 65 from the state. Ditto PBEL’s venture, PBEL City’, near the Andhra Pradesh Police Academy junction. Of the 305 homes that found buyers in this project, 280 were from states such as Maharashtra and Delhi with jobs in the city. Even Trident sealed deals with at least 55 non-local buyers for its Kompally-based Trident Grande’ venture that has so far found a total of 70 customers. Further, the sales figures of Ashoka builders too suggest that close to 40% of their properties are owned by denizens from outside the state.
“Instead of paying steep rents, it is better to invest in property now,” said IT professional Swapnil Bajaj who recently booked an apartment in PBEL City that is currently on sale for Rs 2,850 per square feet (sft). He added, “Being from Chandrapur (Maharashtra), my choice was between Nagpur (closest city to his home town) and Hyderabad. While the prices in Nagpur are similar or in some cases even higher than here, the city, however, is not as well developed as Hyderabad. It neither has leading IT offices nor high quality infrastructure.” According to Bajaj, several `outsiders’ like him, from the city’s service sector, are now turning to the local property market, the T’ trouble notwithstanding. And besides the cheap deals, it’s also the affordable cost of living that is drawing them here. “The city, especially the IT hub, has great prospects. The political unrest is just a passing phase and will not deter growth anyway. It’s a safe haven for property investment,” said a Kolkata-based customer of Trident Grande’.
And while a good chunk of this non-local customer-base consists of high-heeled techies working around the Madhapur-Gachibowli stretch, there are also those from the defence and bio-tech industries who are now considering real estate as an investment option. Not surprising then, industry majors are hopeful of a good show over the next few quarters even if a conclusive decision on separate statehood is not reached. In fact, some of them even claim that permanent residents of neighbouring states too are now eyeing the Hyderabad market. “While it is premature to say that it is a trend, I have received a few enquiries from people, especially from Maharashtra, who wish to invest in property here. The only reason being the affordable pricing,” said Nitin Bichala, managing director of Brook Realtors.
Andhra plans new land acquisition policy for industries
The Andhra Pradesh government is planning to come out with a new land acquisition policy for industries soon. “We want to make better partnership with industry. The new policy will make land allotment as transparent as possible to avoid any future problems,” said chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.
According to him, industry investments worth . 300,000 crore is in the pipelines for the next two years. “We have already cleared 26 industry proposals worth . 51,000 crore. Some companies were reconsidering their plans for expansion due to the existing issues. But that is just a passing phase. IT sector is already under Essential Service Maintenance Act (Esma) and time will heal all problems,” he said.
Despite all political problems and agitations, everyone is interested in the development of Hyderabad, the chief minister said while allaying fears raised by S Mahalingam, CFO, TCS, on uncertainties surrounding the continued development of the state’s capital. TCS was seeking some assurance from the government on the law and order situation.
The chief minister also pointed out that revenues from land registrations have gone up 8-10% above target, signalling increased interest among industries for Andhra Pradesh. His remarks gains momentum as last week the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Fapcci) came out with a report saying many companies decided to shift base from Andhra Pradesh due to Telangana agitation. “The state has lost 20,000 jobs in manufacturing sector and 40,000 jobs in IT services segment in the last 12 months. The state also suffered . 200 crore loss per day due to 17 days of bandh last year,” Fapcci had said.
The chief minister also assured industry that the government will consider bringing manufacturing segment under Esma. Many departments including water, electricity and treasury are already under Esma to ensure that political agitations do not lead to government paralysis. While interacting with members of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Southern Regional Council on Friday he said, there should be a debate on the increase in minimum wages of workers as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) has pushed up wages across the nation.
The state’s new land acquisition policy will be in line with the new land acquisition policy proposed by the Centre. “Earlier, land allotments had lead to some problems. We want to avoid that. The proposal is sent to the Opposition parties so that they can study that for 15 days. We will announce the policy soon,’’ he said. As part of the new policy, the state is planning to introduce a single window clearance system for all land allotments.
Many Outer Ring Road oustees yet to get compensation
P Visweshwara Rao, a resident of Kukatpally, lost his 280 square (sq) yard plot to the Outer Ring Road (ORR) project at Pedda Amberpet in 2007. Four years later, even after the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) provisionally allotted 150 sq yards land under the land-to-land compensation scheme in 2008, he still doesn’t have any land.
Like Visweshwara Rao, there are others; over 1,000 people who lost their land and have been waiting for their compensation under the Relief and Rehabilitation (R&R) package for the past three to four years. HMDA officials, who have been scurrying to complete the ORR by next year in its entirety and begin collection of toll tax, seem to have set no deadline to compensate the ORR displaced victims.
Between 2006 and 2008, the HMDA had acquired land from over 5,000 farmers and plot owners for the ORR, of them 3,187 opted for land compensation instead of cash compensation. The urban development authority thus owes approximately 5,40,585 sq yards of land to ORR victims. A government order (GO) issued in December 2006 by the state government specified that farmers who lost over 80% of their land to the ORR project were eligible for land compensation, apart from cash compensation. If the land was designated for agricultural use, the land owners would receive 400 sq yards plot for ever acre with a maximum ceiling of 1,200 sq yards. The plot owners would also be eligible for land-to-land compensation.
The HMDA identified land at six places for layout development like Shamshabad, Kondapur, Yadgarpally, Koheda, Thimmayapally and Srinagar. However, due to various problems, including the lack of a developer for the layout, encroachment and legal wrangles in the allotted lands, the HMDA took three years to hand over the land to about 2,000 of the 3,187 land owners.
In the last four years, 1,111 ORR oustees were given land at Shamshabad, 90 at Yadgarpally, 406 at Kondapur, and 130 were given land at Srinagar. No layout was developed at places like Koheda and Thimmayapally, where 830 and 175 land allottees respectively continued to wait for land compensation. “As per the provisional allotment letter, the HMDA was supposed to hand over developed plots within two years of allotment. However so far, no layout has been developed at Koheda,” Vishweshwara Rao told TOI.
Interestingly, there were some vacant plots at Shamshabad and Kondapur, land owners, who were allotted land at Koheda, have been asking them to give plots there. But the authorities did not bother to hand over them.
Officials said about 118 acres land was identified at Koheda and was supposed to be handed over to them by the Ranga Reddy district administration. Of it, six acres was encroached upon by some people and it took three years to get them vacated.
The land losers are also also crying foul as they would have got interest had they been given cash compensation. The land rates have also come down drastically at the identified places when compared to 2007 rates and cannot sell them to others.
When contacted, ORR land acquisition officer D Bhaskar admitted there was adelay in development of layouts at Koheda and Thimmayapally as they got land from the RR district administration recently. He said it would take another three to four months to hand over the plots to the allottees.
Another Outer Ring Road stretch opened
Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Thursday said that the 158-km Outer Ring Road (ORR) will be completed in all aspects by November 2012. Apart from the completed 85.5 km ORR, another 35-km stretch will be ready by November this year and the rest by November, 2012, he added.
The chief minister inspected the completed portion of 23.7 km Narsingi-Patancheru stretch, built at a cost of Rs 2,300 crore, and also three of the six ramps constructed as part of the 11-km PVNR Expressway on Thursday. Immediately after the inspection, the ORR stretch and the ramps were opened for traffic.
Speaking to the media at Poppalguda, Kiran Kumar Reddy said heavy vehicles like lorries and trucks would be allowed to ply on this stretch 24 hours unlike roads where they are allowed only at night. He said the Narsingi-Patancheru ORR would connect National Highway-9 with NH-7 and NH-5.
Meanwhile, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) has completed three ramps, including the up ramp at Laxminagar, located between pier numbers 76 and 88, the down ramp at Upparpally junction between pier 193 and 212 and another up ramp at Aramghar located between pier 298 and 312. The three ramps would provide easy access to the people residing in nearby colonies to take the PVNR Expressway to reach the international airport. Similarly, the ramps would help commuters exit the expressway.
The PVNR Expressway was taken up by HMDA at a cost of Rs 600 crore and works began on September 1, 2006. The expressway was completed and opened for the public on October 19, 2009.
Buildings violating rules dot Hyderabad Old City skyline
Mohammed Pahelwan’s property, which was all set to be razed by the GHMC on Tuesday, is one among the thousands of unauthorized commercial and residential buildings in the Old City area. Between February and May alone this year, the corporation identified many as 68 ongoing construction projects as unauthorized. Most of the new constructions of which a chunk of them involve remodelling of old buildings do not have required permissions. The town planning officials remain mute spectators in majority of the cases largely due to political interference, sources in the civic body said.
Almost all builders resort to varying degrees of violations or deviations. “With 99 per cent of the corporators in the area representing a single political party, the political interference runs high here,” said an observer.
But GHMC officials say that all the areas, which were brought under the Urban Land Ceiling Act of 1976, including Chandrayangutta, Bandlaguda, part of Bahadurpura, Nawab Sahab Kunta, Hafizbaba Nagar, entire locality of Hassan Nagar, Riyasatnagar, Mecca Colony among others have unauthorized constructions.
According to officials, on an average, 20 new permissions for carrying out constructions are given in Old City area on a monthly basis.
But builders here say that the GO 86, which declared most of the areas in Old City as congested allowing only ground plus two for residential and ground plus three for commercial buildings has come as a huge stumbling block to construction activity in Old City. “Hence, violations are the norm and not the exception. If the violations have come down to 15-20 per cent in the newer areas in the city over the last few years, it’s a different ball game in Old City due to GO 86,” a builder admits.
“Due to GO 86, there is no commercial viability here. Due to lack of awareness among the public, they buy the property whether it has the required sanction or not,” says another builder, who recently completed his project in Noorkhan Bazaar area. He says that the government has to take a relook into the rule. “There are several areas where despite wider roads, the authorities have marked them as congested, which is unwarranted,” he says.
Hyderabad property tax rates to increase next year
Be prepared to pay five per cent more property tax every year beginning April, 2012. The decision to increase property tax has been taken by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to repay the Rs 600 crore bank loan being taken for various developmental works in the city.
Announcing the Greater Hyderabad City Level Development Plan at a joint press conference on Tuesday, GHMC mayor Banda Karthika Reddy and commissioner MT Krishna Babu said infrastructure and other developmental works would be taken up at a cost of Rs 813 crore in the next two years.
Of Rs 813 crore, the GHMC has decided to take Rs 600 crore loan from the State Bank of Hyderabad at the rate of 11.25 interest. “With the loan, various works like construction of flyovers, rail over bridges, rail under bridges, road widening, junction improvement works, Musi development plan and construction of community halls will be taken up,” the mayor said. A few months ago, then GHMC commissioner Sameer Sharma had decided to improve infrastructure under the Total Infrastructure Provision (TIP) at a cost of Rs 600 crore. About 800 colonies were identified by the authorities to implement the programme. After finalising the modalities, the GHMC even called for expression of interest from banks and other financial institutions.
Soon after Krishna Babu took over as the GHMC commissioner, he replaced the TIP with City Level Development Plan and decided to take up works like flyovers and other infrastructure works with the loan amount.
The mayor said a separate escrow account would be maintained for the project and contractors would get payments directly from the banks after completion of the respective projects.
On the property tax collections, the commissioner said the property tax was being collected only from 10.50 lakh households, where there were 21 lakh households as per the 2011 census. He said efforts were being made to cover all houses within six to seven months.
Krishna Babu said efforts were being made to get 10 per cent vehicle tax and profession tax from the state government. Ironically, the GHMC has not made any efforts to reduce wasteful expenditure and put any restrictions on sops being given to corporators like laptops, study tours and expenditure on its own officers.
The GHMC commissioner appealed to the people not to purchase unauthorised constructions. He said building plans would be made available at all citizen service centres soon. On footpath encroachments, Krishna Babu said removal of encroachments would be taken up in the first week of every month for the next four to five months and cellar violations would also be removed in a phased manner.