Smart Cities in India

Recently, CM Fadnavis informed that 10 cities of Maharashtra would compete with other states to bag the ‘Smart City’ projects which meant to get the more advanced and well developed urban infrastructure.

Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis stated that there are 10 cities from our state which is being nominated for the Centre’s “Smart Cities” project and we will compete with the entries of other states to bag funds from central to develop more advanced and developed urban infrastructure. Edged out emerging towns from the developed cities of Maharashtra are in the race to bag the funds from central. However; the name of shortlisted cities are; Mumbai, Kalyan – Dombivali, Navi Mumbai, Thane from MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan region), Pune, Solapur, Pimpri – Chinchwad from Western Maharashtra, Nagpur and Amravati from Vidarbha, Nashik from North Maharashtra and Aurangabad from Marathwada.

Recently, Central Government of India, has identified development of new towns close to those cities which are well developed because its key behind the smart city initiative where central government will contribute Rs 50 crore each year towards the smart city project. According to Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India there are lacks of infrastructure and basic amenities in the new emerging towns of Maharashtra and due to that soon CM will announce next plan for development, which will focus on the urban areas or Maharashtra. This report observed that out of 36 none of the town has even the basic service level benchmarks for solid waste management, sewage management and water supply, however; the audit was for the period of 2011 to 2014. According to CAG report, water supplied in 50 per cent of the audited towns are between 25 to 69 litres per day per person, however; according to government norms it should be between 70 to 70 litres per day per person. It was observed that due to loss from distribution system, treatment plans, reduced efficiency of water the problem of irregular water supply comes in existence.

Almost there is no town which found to be segrating municipal waste; the more CAG added that the numbers of towns are not even authorized by the state pollution for the waste disposal facilities. However; the CAG has also identified irregularities in the main irrigation projects in all over the state and there are many mini projects which don’t have approved master plan.

Home sales are down by 8 per cent

As per the latest reports of firm Liases Foras, the sales of Home are down by 8 per cent in top six cities of the country over the year-ago quarter, but India rose 2 per cent sequentially in the last quarter.

After the recent reports it’s clear that year-on year basis the sales of home are fell by 37 per cent in the NCR region while the sales of home was up by 8 per cent in the Mumbai. Whereas; Hyderabad was emerged as the best performing real estate market with more than 46 per cent year-on–year jump in the sales of home and it was followed by the Pune where sales was up by 22 per cent, in Bengaluru the home sales was increased by more than 5 per cent and in Chennai the home sales was up by 40 per cent.

In the report of quarter-on-quarter basis it is recorded that the sales in Chennai and Mumbai were up by 24 per cent and 25 per cent respectively and the sales was up by 31 per cent in Bengaluru whereas; the sales were down by 27 per cent in NCR region. The price of properties in Hyderabad, the Mumbai Metropolitan Area, NCR, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai remained stable in the last two years on the year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter basis.

After analyzing the latest property trends it’s clear that unsold housing inventory level is so much up in the top six cities and it’s of about 853.09 million sq ft or about 650,000 apartments between the period of January to March quarter however; in the previous quarter it was about 832.09 million sq ft. Among all the real estate market, NCR had the highest unsold inventory with the 321.68 million sq ft area and it is expected it will take more than 71 months to sell these unsold inventories. However; Mumbai Metropolitan Region has the 192.27 million sq. ft as the inventory which will take about 46 months to be sold these spaces. And Bengaluru is among the best performing real estate market among the larger ones which have more than 152.43 million sq ft area and it is expected that it will take more than 27 months to sell them.

As per the reports of Liases Foras, the new supply in the current quarter rose about 21 per cent over the previous quarter which was about 36 per cent because the new supply came in the range of Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore followed by 29 per cent in the range Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh. Reports stated that the units of two bedrooms constituted 36 per cent in the new supply which was followed by three bedroom units at 35 per cent. MMR and Bengaluru have 28 per cent and 31 per cent of the new supply respectively.