The Great Scam of India

Formal approvals granted till date : 234

Total land requirements for the above : 33,308 hectares

Of 234 SEZs, state govt. ventures in :60
Involving :17,800 hectares

SEZs where operations commenced :63
Involving :8,051 hectares

Land in possession of 63 notified SEZs :67 sq. kms.
Land requirement for 234 SEZs :350 sq. kms.
63 notified SEZs will involve
Investment :Rs. 53561 crore

All the SEZs have grabbed land near existing big cities such as Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Noida, Kolkatta, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai etc.

Indian Realtors on Advertising Spree

With the slowdown in demand for Real Estate in India due to abnormal prices, Realtors like Parsvnath Developers, Unitech and Ansals are on an advertising spree to spend their excess inventory. They are heavily dependant on the print media and are extremely aggressive on the Web as well. Ansals had an Ad budget of Rs 15 crore.

Mr. Sanjay Dutt of Cushman & Wakefield said,

The Ad spend of most developers has gone up by 100-200 percent on the conservative side in the recent past. A slowdown in the real estate scenario in the last 3 months has necessitated companies to advertise aggressively.

include Gated Community, 9 Hole Gold Course, Realtors like Ansals are going overseas to sell their inventory. Some of their flashy tag linesWi-Fi availability, Food Plaza, Shopping Complex etc. Sure its true to some extent, but most of it is a straight forward lie. For instance, in Bangalore, SJR Park Vista on Ring Road promised so many things but the developers handed over the apartments with no water supply :-)

10 Billion Private Equity in Indian Real Estate

Foreign Private Equity players have lined up $10 Billion investments in the Indian Real Estate Sector. Its a pity none want to invest in India's infrastructure and our Finance Ministry and RBI are sleeping instead of banning the money and sending the prices through skies.

The cash-strapped developers overcome conservative lending by banks, stricter rules for placements before share offers and tougher guidelines for overseas borrowings or IPO has led to go for Private Equity.

Siddhartha Gupta, an analyst with Macquarie Research, said,

Real-estate funds will look at an investment of $10 billion this year. This is the best time for PE players to enter the real-estate market.

Wachovia Corp., a US-based diversified financial group, invested about $57 million in Vipul Ltd, a Gurgaon-based real-estate group, for buying a 15% stake. Inspite of unclear Land Titles and Land mafia operating in Real Estate, greedy FIIs are flocking to India as if their is no tomorrow. Hopefully, a political shakeout will cool down the entire Real Estate market and the economy which has made living a HELL for common man in India.

Navi Mumbai SEZ Proposal on Hold

SEZ Board of Approvals gave formal approval to 17 Special Economic Zones, including those of Vedanta and DLF. Decision on Reliance, Mukesh Ambani promoted Navi Mumbai SEZ has been deferred for want of more information on measures proposed by the promoters to plug revenue leakages.

Apart from Navi Mumbai, five other SEZs that came for formal approval were deferred because of land issues.

The ones that secured approval are Vedanta Alumina and DLF's SEZs in Orissa, Suzlon’s two zones in Gujarat and Karnataka and Unitech’s IT SEZ in West Bengal.

Pre-Launch Real Estate Sale down 60%

Due to higher borrowing costs and abnormal inflation, Pre-Launch Real Estate sales have taken a back seat within the last 2 months and is down by a whopping 60%.

Pre-launches enabled builders to take advance bookings for a project after getting the requisite building permits, but much before starting construction, providing them with virtually free cash.
Sanjay Chandra, MD of Unitech Ltd, India's leading real estate company which is also part of the Morgan Stanley Capital Index, said,

Almost 60 per cent of home buyers are staying away from pre-launches. They want to wait and buy an apartment once they see the apartment building actually being constructed.

Builders and Developers have no deadlines unlike us where we lose the project / client. For instance, SJR Builders of Bangalore who developed SJR Park Vista delivered the homes to pre-launch buyers 9 months after the scheduled date. For 9 months, the BUYER lost an opportunity of at least Rs 200,000. [Avoid SJR]

Citigroup India Equity Research has downgraded all the Real Estate Stocks in India.

Rahul Bajaj Declares SEZ as Land Bank Scam

India's leading Industrialist and Bajaj Auto Chairman, Rahul Bajaj who is also a member of the upper house [Rajya Sabha] just a while ago declared in the Parliament that SEZs in India are the biggest Land bank Scams in the World.

Advocating direct interaction with the farmers, he said, if vast stretches of land have to be acquired to set up SEZs the companies must get them by paying the right value, and not the subsidised rates and not by taking innocent lives like the communist leaders in Bengal did.

He also said it would not be fair to compare the SEZs in India with that of China, as in case of the latter the land is owned by the state and the benefits go directly to the people. But, in this case it is the developer who is benefiting the most.

Bajaj said development of an industrial area does not mean it has to be near an existing city. It would be of more significance if the infrastructure creation takes place at a distance providing an opportunity to promote auxiliary settlement, he added.

Indians who have lost Independence

Everybody on the earth knows that why Indians lost their independence to the British. The same time has come in the communist ruled state of West Bengal in India. As I write this post my head hangs in shame to be a citizen of the so called "Republic of India".

The communist rulers in West Bengal are sold out just like your Multiplex Blockbuster ticket. Their vested interest to help a controversial Indonesian company has claimed dozens of lives and minor clashes and Murd*rs are the orders of the day in Nandigram. Independent citizen journalists who visited the area were attacked and threatened by miscreants acting on behalf of ruling party.

Is India still a FREE and Democratic country ? If the answer is yes, why do we see people being K*lled mercilessly for LAND ? Aren't Land and the Natural Resources of the nation citizens rights ? Do we need a government which can't protect its own citizens but orders to K*ll them ? Raise your voice and Save Citizens of Nandigram. Jai Hind!

Tags: Land Bank Scam, Real Estate, Communist, India