Omaxe to build 10 lakh 'affordable' homes

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

Focus shifting to budget housing, say realty playe...Nagarjuna Construction puts real estate projects o...The worst is not yet over for realty sectorFestival sales down by half: Parsvnath

At a time when the burgeoning middle-class and high income people are becoming preferred target for property developers, realty firm Omaxe has lined up a 20-billion dollar (Rs 80,000 crore) investment to develop 10 lakh ‘affordable’ homes for low-income consumers.

The company is planning to offer these housing units, to be developed in the next five years, in a price range of Rs 3-15 lakh per flat, sources said.

However, these units may not come up in metro cities like Delhi and Mumbai due to high land costs and the company is rather targeting tier-two and three cities such as Sonepat, Nimrana, Bhiwadi, they added.

BSE-listed Omaxe has set up a new subsidiary 'National Affordable Housing and Infrastructure Ltd' to develop these affordable housing units.

When contacted, Omaxe Chairman and Managing Director Rohtas Goel confirmed the development and said, "We will deliver 10 lakh affordable housing in the next five years".

However, he did not wish to comment on the investment figures. "Affordable housing is a big issue in the country. There is a shortage of 24 million housing units in the country, majority of which are in economically weaker section, LIG and Janta flat segments," Goel said.

The project cost for developing 10 lakh units would be about Rs 80,000 crore at an average cost of Rs 1,000 per sq ft on land, construction and marketing, sources said.

The Delhi-based company plans to develop one lakh units in the current fiscal on the existing land bank and would start rolling out projects from July 2008, sources said.

In the first phase, Omaxe would come up with such project in tier II and III cities of north India and would later expand it to other parts of the country.

Omaxe, which currently has a land bank of 4,000 acre, would have to acquire more land to develop project planned for second phase, sources said.

The company would not face any problem in funding the planned investments, as the project would be self-sustaining, they said, adding that internal accrual would take care of land cost.

Foreign investors have evinced keen interest in picking up equity in Omaxe's this venture, but company is yet to decide whether to rope in foreign partners, sources said.