Push for urban development: Modi government to announce 20 smart cities in January

NEW DELHI: Pushing ahead with its urban development goals, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government will announce the first batch of 20 smart cities early next month. 

"Evaluation of smart city plans of 97 cities in the second stage of 'City Challenge' competition is already in progress and the results will be announced shortly marking a high point in promoting competition among cities for resource allocation, the first of its kind," a Ministry of Urban Development press release said. 

Both the urban ministries have selected cities for allocation of central assistance based on objective criteria of total urban population and number of statutory urban local bodies besides urban poor in each state ending discretion and subjectivity, under new urban missions. 

"Government has reset the parameters for urban planning in the year 2015 and has approved an investment of about Rs 42,000 crore in 2015 for developing basic urban infrastructure and for affordable housing alone. This includes Rs 19,170 crore for improving infrastructure relating to water supply, sewerage networks, storm water drains, urban transport and open spaces in 474 cities in 18 states under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), launched in June this year," the release said.

Under another flagship programme of Prime Minister's Awas Yojana (Urban), an investment of over Rs 22,000 crore has been approved in 2015 for construction of 4.25 lakh houses for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in 227 cities in 11 states. 

"In pursuit of enabling urban areas as more effective engines of high rate of economic growth besides making them more liveable, the government has put an end to ad-hocism in urban planning and resource allocation under new urban sector initiatives. Under AMRUT, a detailed infrastructure gap analysis has been made mandatory for formulating Service Level Improvement Plans (SLIP) for each of the mission cities for allocation of central assistance from out of the five year kitty of Rs 50,000 crore. Unlike in the past, urban local bodies and state governments have been empowered to appraise and approve projects with the Ministry of Urban Development completely withdrawing from the same," the release added. 

SOURCE: THE ECONOMIC TIMES

Tamil Nadu submits its smart city plans

The state government submits plans for 12 smart cities to union urban development ministry.

The Tamil Nadu government, which had sought time from the centre to has submitted its smart city plans because it was busy managing the floods in Chennai has now submitted plans for 12 smart cities in the state.

The union ministry of urban development had set the deadline of December 15, 2015 to submit the smart city plans.

The 12 cities and towns included in the smart city mission are Tiruchirapalli, Tirunelveli, Dindigul, Thanjavur, Tirupur, Salem, Vellore, Coimbatore, Madurai, Erode, Thoothukudi and Chennai.

With this, 97 cities out of the 98 included in the Smart City Mission have submitted smart city plans to the ministry of urban development. 85 cities had submitted their plans in time. Telangana government had sought more time to replace Hyderabad with another city. Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir are still to nominate one city each for inclusion in the Smart City Mission.

The ministry has also begun the process of evaluation of city level smart city plans by setting up three teams of two experts each. The plans received have been referred to them for evaluation in the second stage of the City Challenge competition.

At the end of the evaluation, the first batch of Smart Cities to be financed during this financial year would be announced. The ministry has set a cap of 20 such cities to be financed during this financial year and 40 each during the next two years.
Source: ET Realty 

A look back at Delhi NCR's residential real estate

It has been a tough year for the property market. Faced with low sales volume, uncertainty and volatility, the market has bewildered both consumers and buyers. Housing demand from the NRI consumers has also been low.

However, not all was gloomy in the real estate sector. The year 2015 gave numerous bursts of positivity throughout the year, in a bid to help both fronts.

What ‘worked’ for the realty market in 2015?

We have summarised some announcements and declarations during this year which affected and will affect your property buying and selling decisions in the near future.

While some of them impact your property quests directly, others such as the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) policy rate cut will influence you indirectly.

The land pooling policy will make the city planned, developed and boost your residential options. While rise in the collection of property tax gives hopes for a regulated residential market in future.

Encapsulating the Delhi NCR residential market

The Delhi NCR market was under stress this year. Like the rest of the country, not many property transactions took place in 2015. However, the market saw a spear in end-user queries. Investors did not show much enthusiasm in making an investment this year. The reason behind why end-users queries did not result in action could be the unclear possession timelines. 

In cases where the delivery date was not a problem, the price bracket of the projects was very high. Some experts opine that the way out of such lockjam is to have a direct conversation with the builder and get a discount on the chosen property.

In order to boost sales volumes, developers resorted to deals and discounts during the festive season which lingered for some time. However, in comparison to last year’s sales volume, the figures were unmatchable.

The latest gimmick undertaken by the developer community is focussing on location and not project. Developers are buddying with their peers and forming groups to promote a location together. This way they hope to grab the attention of buyers in one location which will prove beneficial to everyone. Some such locations under the limelight are Sohna, Kundli, Mohali, (near the airport), etc.

The demand-supply mismatch has resulted in empty apartments in gated societies and flats in plotted developments.

Infrastructure-wise, the NCR market has to haul up their efforts in large quantum. Faulty infrastructure, irregular civic services and safety are some key problems dissuading buyers from investing in properties.

We have summed the important real estate related events which took place this year:

• DDA simplified the lift policy to assist people in installing lifts in old flats. It also tripled the floor area ratio (FAR) making the city go vertical
• CCEA approved interest subsidy hike to promote affordable housing
• Stricter norms for occupation certificates were introduced
• Operational guidelines for land pooling policy notified
• The Center invited investments from private developers in the housing sector to achieve the goal of ‘Housing for All by 2022’
• Haryana government constituted state and city-level task forces to monitor infrastructural development in Gurgaon by taking inputs from the RWAs
• Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) held a draw of plots for people displaced by the Dwarka Expressway project
• Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) allocated Rs 22 crore for the development of 100-km cycle tracks
• FAR in the Lutyens Bungalow Zone to go up from 20% to 33%
• Circle rates for agricultural land may go up to Rs 1.5 crore per acre
• The ‘Metro Pod’ project connecting Delhi and Manesar has been delayed but is expected to begin within 4 months
• About 3.5 lakh affordable homes to be created by 2016 in two villages of Ghaziabad
• The Centre included real estate agents in the Central Advisory Council through an Amendment
  
  
  Opportunities available to the stakeholders of Delhi NCR realty in 2015The real estate sector not just consists of buyers and developers, but a host of other stakeholders as well. Some of them include architects, material suppliers, facility management service providers, project management consultants, etc. We spoke with some of them and asked them how their year 2015 has been. Here’s what they have to say: 

Going forward, there are chances that the real estate market in the year 2016 will remain similar to this year. If such is the case, developers and government bodies will need to come up with drastic measures to build consumer confidence.

SOURCE: magicbricks.com

JM HOUSING ORGANISES BLOOD DONATION AT JM AROMA

With over 15 years of expertise in real estate, JM Housing has become synonymous with quality construction and customer satisfaction. In continuation of it’s societal responsibilities, the company successfully organised a Blood Donation Camp at it’s recent residential project JM Aroma in Sec – 75, Noida. 

The camp was organised in association with a local blood bank. Several enthusiastic participants including employees, contractors & their teams and the residents of the company’s project Aroma participated in this noble cause. The program continued for the whole day with full enthusiasm. Every donor had to pass through the preliminary medical tests like BP, Hb, weight etc. before donating the blood. The donors were offered a rotary club blood donation card for the future use.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Rupesh Gupta, Director, JM Housing said “It is the responsibility of every organisation to give back what they can to the society. This is one step towards the same in our continued & spirited efforts to enrich the society. The event witnessed a decent gathering and was much appreciated in the area. People not only in the locality but also in the neighbourhood appreciated the idea and gave it a good response. We look forward to our segregated efforts towards the same and would keep organising more CSR activities in the time ahead.”

About the company:

Started in the year 1999, JM Housing Limited, an associate concern of JM Group, is a repute name in the real estate sector of Delhi & NCR. They are one of the prominent names engaged in providing real estate solutions for commercial and residential construction service to the clients. Founded on a strong lineage and an established reputation, JM Housing Limited is a leading real estate development company whose philosophy is based on Client Satisfaction, Execution Excellence, and Timely delivery. JM Housing Limited was formed with the sole purpose of providing professional and honest service to its valued customers.