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Kolkata Govt Holding Plots to Get Better Prices
The economy might be on the recovery path, but state government agencies, such as KMDA or Hidco, are still going slow in auctioning or selling plots to developers for commercial and residential real-estate projects. The agencies are waiting for the economy to improve further so that they can get the most out of it by auctioning off their land. KMDA has plans to auction about 100 acres at Nonadanga for setting up a business park and another three-acre plot off Barrackpore-Kalyani Expressway for a commercial complex. The bidding process for another 18-acre plot off Kona Expressway, which was supposed to have taken place in July, is on hold after a court case.
Officials, however, said that they are waiting for things to improve further before starting off with these projects as real estate developers may still not be interested in paying astronomical prices for these plots at this moment. “The recession had badly affected real estate prices. Though the situation is improving, developers may still not be interested in buying these plots for huge sums at the moment. We will re-start the process once the recession dies down and the market becomes favourable again,” said an official. In fact, KMDA is working on retrieving about 150 acres of land that it had lost track of in and around the city.
In 2005, KMDA earned a whopping Rs 209 crore by selling a 6.2-acre plot near Parama Island off EM Bypass to the Dubai-based real estate major EMaar-MGF. Kolkata Municipal Corporation also sold a 5-acre plot on EM Bypass to a private real estate developer for Rs 154 crore. Last year, KMDA sold two plots, one each at Salt Lake and Sector-V, for setting up corporate parks. KMDA had previously sold nearly 2,000 acres on EM Bypass, Salt Lake, Baisnabghata Patuli, Garia, Sonarpur and elsewhere in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area.
Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco), too, has several plots in New Town, which they plan to auction. But Hidco is also going slow on the auctions. The authorities are framing a policy to determine how commercial plots in Rajarhat could be sold. “The particular commercial plots with us that have been earmarked for joint venture projects will be handed over to our partners after negotiations. All other vacant plots would be handed over to private developers after competitive bidding. But this would take some time now, as the real estate market, which got hit by the recession, is yet to fully recover,” said a Hidco official.
So far, most commercial plots in New Town’s Action Area I have been handed over to private developers like Bengal Ambuja, Bengal Peerless, Bengal Shrachi and others for real estate development.
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