GNIDA offers land for group housing again, tightens terms

More than half-a-dozen applicants have shown interest in purchasing plots meant for group housing projects in Greater Noida. The industrial authority floated a scheme comprising four builder plots last month.

The smallest one among them measures 5.83 acre and is priced at Rs 76.2 crore, while the asking price of the largest one spread over 9.72 acres in Sigma 3 is Rs 127 crore. The group housing section of the Greater Noida Authority evaluated the initial response to the scheme on Tuesday and found that seven applicants were keen on participating in the online auction scheduled later this month.

Given the weak sentiments in the market and lingering issues between the homebuyers and developers, officials were not expecting a lot of response from the players. However, taking lessons from the past mistakes while launching schemes for private developers, this time GNIDA completely revised the payment terms and conditions and stressed upon the timely completion of the projects this time.

While earlier plots were awarded to the developers by taking just 10% of the total land premium upfront, this time GNIDA will secure 50% within 60 days of allotment and the balance amount over the next four years in eight instalments. Similarly, the authority will also impose stringent conditions to ensure all the phases planned in the layout get ready within five years of allotment.

GNIDA’s CEO Narendra Bhooshan said, “Coming out with a new group housing scheme for builders was not easy. A lot of industrial allotment and development has taken place over the past few years and demand for apartment complexes was being felt. Also several projects are running behind schedule. We have introduced conditions which will ensure only serious players enter the business this time.”

The last group housing scheme was floated by the authority in 2013-14. The final outcome of the latest scheme will be out in the open by November 15 or 16. The documents of the applicants will be scrutinised and they would also have to deposit the required money by then to be eligible to participate in the auction.

CREDAI (western UP) secretary and managing director of Civitech Group, Subodh Goel said, “It is good to see that the authorities have taken corrective measures to ensure timely completion of the projects. But increasing upfront payment to 50% from the existing 10% will discourage a lot of legitimate players too as developers do not have that much liquidity at the moment.”

Out of the four plots that are situated in Sigma 3 (two in Sigma 3), Zeta 1 and Eta 2, most applicants are interested in bagging the Zeta 1 group housing plot as several colonies have already come up in the area and development activity is on the rise.