Gurgaon authority plan bites dust

Haryana Governments grand plan of setting up a separate urban development authority for Gurgaon has hit another roadblock.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had last year cleared the proposal but the plan got delayed due to bureaucratic differences.

Last week, the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) on Urban Affairs and Infrastructure Development called an emergency meeting to resolve the issue but they failed to come up with a solution.

Chief Secretary Prem Prashant was also present at the meeting. While a section of the state bureaucracy favors the separate authority for Gurgaon on the pattern of Noida Area Development Authority, officials of Town and Country Planning and Industries Department have reservations in this regard. The two departments are advocating decentralisation of powers to their officers instead of a parallel set-up .

The Committee of Secretaries has constituted a group under the Chief Town Planner to study the the pros and cons of establishing the proposed authority.

There are similar set-ups in Hyderabad and Bangalore. The group would also study the models adopted by the authorities in these cities, a top ranking official told HT.

The CoS on Urban Affairs and Infrastructure Development comprises Secretaries of Town and Country Planning, Power, Urban Development, PWD (B&R) and Industries Departments.

The plan has been pending for a while. Hooda, in a meeting with industrialists last year, had promised an early solution to the issue.

In 2002-03, the Chautala Government had talked of the need for a separate body for Gurgaon, but it did not materialize.

Later, it contemplated setting up a Gurgaon-Faridabad Leisure Valley Development Authority to develop the hilly area between Gurgaon and Faridabad into a money-spinning leisure valley with mega facilities for recreation, entertainment and sporting activities.

The draft of the Gurgaon-Faridabad Leisure Valley Development Authority Bill was also finalized. But the plan never took off. Hooda hopes that the CoS will come up with a feasible solution soon.

Gurgaon metro gets VAT exemption

The Haryana government granted exemption from value added tax (VAT) to all goods sold to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for the construction of the metro rail extension from Delhis border to Gurgaon.

The DMRC would have to give a certificate to the state government stating all VAT-exempted goods were used on the project.

A sum of Rs.1.67 billion has been earmarked for the project for 2006-07. The Haryana government and its agencies would fund it.

The state government and DMRC would sign an agreement in this regard soon.

Tongue twist of fate

The familiar adage is that there are many Indias. Given our ancient Indic obsession with pairs of opposites, our academic and popular journals are full of bi-polar descriptions. Rich vs. poor, rural vs. urban, Bangalores silicon plateau vs. Bihars badlands, Gurgaons sleek shopping malls (islands of consumerism) vs. Vidarbhas crop-less farms (islands of death), soaring stock markets vs. barefoot children, spiralling real estate values vs. horror-stricken slums, new-found materialism vs. eternal spiritual values… the list goes on.

Id like to make my wise sage-like contribution to this litany. We have two labour markets. One where wages increase at double digit rates, where mobility is the name of the game (if you dont switch jobs every year there is something wrong with you), where resumes gain in value each month, where placement agencies make a fortune. The other where joblessness is an endless fate, where years of despair pass you by as you keep waiting for a job that never turns up and you fill your life with inane activity, not with fruitful employment, an environment where real incomes shrink, savings erode and where you are left as a mere spectator watching the other India pass you by.

There is only one differentiator between the two worlds: knowledge of English or lack thereof. You may have flunked high school, but if your English is passable, you are on to the ladder of upward mobility. You may have a masters degree or even a doctorate, but if your English is poor or non-existent you are for all practical purposes excluded from the shining India. Even more than engineering degrees or MBAs, the English language is the great divider.

And all of us know this in our heart of hearts. Pandit Nehrus grandchildren and great-grandchildren attended English medium schools, as do those of most leaders. Vociferous adherents of Hindutva and Marxutva are great patrons of the much maligned missionary schools and foreign institutions when it comes to their own children. Where is the elementary justice, let alone the logic of arguing that English is good for our children but not good enough for the children of others — for the children of our servants and our ever-present poor. Everyone gets it; the poor get it, their children get it and yet we carry on with this charade that what is obvious to all is not the basis of public policy.

A friend of mine runs an NGO in Bombay (sorry Mumbai!) in the field of education. She recounts the story of how she went up to some street children and asked them if they would come and live with her. They would have shelter, comforts and education. The literally street-smart children told her that they were happy as they were. In an inspired moment, she offered to teach them English. The childrens eyes lit up. Their enthusiasm was tremendous. If it was English that she was going to teach them, they were willing to join up in droves. The basic common sense that these lost children of urban India could summon, is denied to our honourable ministers, secretaries, joint secretaries, commissioners and commissars!

Farmers shop for land with SEZ windfall

FEW FARMERS are seen at Nimana village in Haryanas Jhajjar district. They are all away, searching for cultivable land to buy. Rajender Singh and his five brothers are about to leave for Hisar. He reveals that his neighbours have travelled 500 km to Nagaur district in Rajasthan in their search. The villagers call it the Reliance Effect.

Most of them have sold their land to Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), which along with the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC), will set up a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Jhajjar and Gurgaon districts. Singh and his brothers have sold their 23 acres of land to the ambitious SEZ, in which the initial investment is Rs 40,000 crore.

Reliance is buying land from farmers at Rs 22 lakh per acre, comparable to the rates fixed by the state government. The company has made advance payment — 10 per cent of the total price of the land — to many farmers, and even opened offices in Jhajjar so that farmers can easily contact them.

The farmers are not complaining. Certainly not at Nimana or its surrounding villages. The groundwater level in this area has been falling for some time and the yield from the land depleting with every season. Says Jaiveer, a farmer: Either there is no water or the water is saline. Even mustard farming, which does not require too much water, is affected.

But farmers are not frittering away the windfall that has come their way. Like the Singhs who got an advance of Rs 50 lakh, they are all looking for land. Says Chandan, a farmer at Sondhi village: We know how to sow and harvest. What other livelihood option do we have once our land has gone? It makes sound sense to buy land somewhere and start farming again. Or else, sooner or later we will be ruined.

Reliance has so far bought 100 acres from six villages — Pelpa, Nimana, Sondhi, Faizabaad Pasod, Dadri Toi and Badli - and entered into agreements for the purchase of another 600 acres in the area.

The scenario is different at Dewarkhana, Ismailpur and Fatehpur - villages close to Gurgaon - where a surburbia of malls and corporate houses has already been built on what was once farmland.

Here farmers are refusing Reliances offer. They want better prices if they are to sell. A Reliance official says, Farmers are asking Rs 40-50 lakh per acre, because of their lands location. They know, once construction begins, land prices will rise much higher than what they are being offered. Reliance, therefore, strategically decided to buy land in Jhajjar first.

The HSIIDC-RIL SEZ project, which attracted much controversy when the state government decided to hand over about 1,500 acres in Gurgaon to the joint venture, received a setback of sorts when Sonia Gandhi rejected the idea of the Congress government helping private developers to acquire land.

Reliance then started buying land on its own. But some farmers still fear that the government may forcibly acquire their land for the SEZ.

Gurgaon hotel site auction nets Rs 138 cr

Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) pocketed Rs 138 crore by auctioning 2.16 acre hotel site in Sector-44 on Thursday. This has come as a major boost to the administration for marketing it as the most preferred destination for investors.

As per norm, reserve price of hotel site of Sector-44 was Rs 21 crore. However, keeping in view the market trend, it was increased to Rs 87.5 crore. Auction of the said site started from estimated price of Rs 90 crore and was finally auctioned for Rs 138 crore to H B Estate Developer Ltd, giving a whopping 631% increase. A total of 32 firms participated in the bid.

This has proved that Gurgaon remains the top priority for investors in comparison to the neighbouring regions, said administrator S P Gupta. Nevertheless, how Gurgaon is increasingly becoming the hot investment destination can be realised from the fact that when DDA recently held auctioning of hotel sites in Delhi, there were no bidder.

Gurgaon road rage: Police arrest engineer

Police arrested one of the three men accused of driving over a 35-year-old doctor in Gurgaon today, even as doctors said he was yet to recover consciousness after being admitted in a critical condition to a local hospital.

Dr. Amit Diwan, a radiologist at a Gurgaon hospital, was parking his car at his Sector 10-A house when a speeding Tata Safari, bearing a Faridabad number, scraped it, police and eyewitnesses said. As Diwan objected, the driver of the Tata Safari reversed it and hit him. The car then tried to speed away, but my son caught hold of the fender and was dragged for over 150 metres. The vehicle also hit a rickshaw and injured two other persons, said Amits father BR Diwan. When one its tyres burst, the occupants abandoned the vehicle.

Police managed to trace the owners of the car through its registration number, but found that that it had been sold and its new owners had not re-registered it. Their investigations led to Jitesh Godhara, also a Sector 10-A resident. Jitesh is an engineer in the Sona Steering factory, said an officer, but refused to reveal whether he was the driver of the car.

Doctors at Kalyani Hospital, where Dr Diwan was admitted, said he has sustained head injuries and some fractures. He is still unconscious and may take a few days to recover, they added.

Gurgaon starts land acquisition

With the group of ministers (GoM), headed by Union finance minister P Chidambaram, giving the green signal to the Delhi-Gurgaon Metro stretch, the way for Metro connectivity to Gurgaon has been cleared.

Considering the fact that Haryana government will have to pay more for the project in case of further escalation of cost due to delay in handing over the land needed for the completion of the project by August 2010, Gurgaon administration has already started its process for land acquisition on war scale.

The action plan has been prepared for this purpose. We are quite sure to put everything in place as per the schedule. The land acquisition will start under emergency clause, said HUDA administrator S P Gupta.

Qutab Minar to Gurgaon stretch will cover approximately 15 km, of which around 8 km line will be Delhi territory and the rest in Gurgaon. The entire stretch would be elevated and it will have eight stations - three of them would be on Delhi side and the rest five on Gurgaon side. DMRC spokesman Anuj Dayal said all the platforms would be of 185 meters in length so that even eight-coach trains could be plied on this stretch. The elevation would be of about 13 meters, Dayal said.

As of the expenditure incurred in the project, the stretch falling in Delhi would cost Rs 734 and Gurgaon stretch Rs 688 crore. For Delhi stretch, both the Centre and Delhi government will invest Rs 222 crore and another Rs 49 crore will flow as subordinate debt. JBIC has been approached for Rs 352 crore and the sanction is awaited. Moreover, Haryana government will pay Rs 111 crore, considering the low ridership on this stretch.

Gurgaon, the next property hot spot

It all started in the early 1980s and two decades later it hasnt stopped. Gurgaon continues to bring in high-rise residential complexes, plush offices and glitzy malls. But just what is driving that demand?

If you see any MNC who signs up for 2,000 sq feet of space, for example a back office space in Gurgaon, then going by a ball park figure 2,000 people will work there. If even 20 per cent decide to live in Gurgoan it means 400 people and 400 new homes - one entire residential complex, says Regional Director, Trammell Crow Meghraj, Pankaj Renjhen.

Property prices, which have been soaring consequently, doubled over the past two years. But now experts believe the phase of frenzied price rises is over.

The over heated market of Gurgaon has stabilized. But theres escalation of prices still going on. If anyone thinks, that prices have really come down in absolute terms, then they should know it hasnt, says Executive Director, North, Knight Frank, India, Jayant Varma

However, there could be good news if you plan to buy a home in Gurgaon. The Haryana Urban Development Authority has drawn up a master plan that will release 33,726 hectares around Gurgaon, three times Gurgaons size. Of the total amount 14,380 hectares will be devoted to residential development.

All these projects, the area that has come under the new master plan - the prices here will be much lower than prices in Gurgoan. There will be more demand here, says Director, Ansal AP, Pranav Ansal.

And analysts say property on Gurgaon-Sohna Road and areas towards Manesar will make promising investments.

Next intl women football championships at Gurgaon

The next international women football championship would be organised at Gurgaon.

This was disclosed by the Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, President of All India Football Federation and Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, while addressing the players after inaugurating the semifinal matches of the second round of Santosh Trophy here Gurgaon today.

While lauding the role of the Haryana government for successfully organizing the 61st National Santosh Trophy, he said that the government had organised the tournament effectively, thereby proving that any national or international level event could be organized here.

He also announced that the exhibition match of the Indian team selected for the next Asian Games would be held against Malaysia here.

Integreon plans to open centres in Gurgaon, Manila

Integreon, a Mumbai-based legal process outsourcing firm, will open two centres in Gurgaon and Manila, Integreon chief operating officer Prashant Chawla said on Tuesday.

Both centres are expected to be operational in the first quarter of 07, Mr Prashant Chawla said. The 500-seat Gurgaon facility will be built at a 45,000 sq ft area, while the Manila centre is expected to have a capacity of around 300-500 seats.

This is the first time that Integreon is looking to set up centres outside Mumbai. Currently, Integreon has two centres in the city. The company wants to derisk work by expanding to other cities.

To avoid work getting hampered in situations like 26/7 or blasts, the company wants to have an alternative centre to take on the work load, Mr Chawla added.

Integreons clients have been pressing for opening an alternative centre to take the work load during critical situations. This is a common business practice by many big Indian BPOs.

Gurgaon, which is a BPO hub, has been chosen because of easy availability of talent such as lawyers. The company expects to recruit around 500 people in the next six months to start operations. The Gurgaon centre will be used to service the existing clients as well as some future ones, said Mr Chawla. Integreon has about 45 clients.

Integreon is growing at 100% year-on-year and US-based legal clients of the company wanted it to expand beyond Mumbai. The company has also finalised another strategic location in Manila which will have a facility with 300-500 seats.

The reason to go to Manila is the easy availability of lawyers at much cheaper rates than India. With the Indian BPO industry saturating and manpower shortage, many Indian BPOs have expanded to other emerging destinations like China, Eastern Europe and the Philippines.