Page 21 - Banking Finance April 2016
P. 21
HOUSING
Centre nods to 257cr for RMC's housing schemes Housing.com loses an-
other co-founder
The efforts by Rajkot Municipal Corpo- Ramnathpara, Bhavaninagar, and
ration (RMC) to make the city slum- Sagarnagar. Out of these, Laludi Advitiya Sharma, co-founder at
free got a major shot in the arm with Vonklo, Ramnathpara and Housing.com,
the Union government approving Rs Bhavaninagar are located along the Aji has resigned
257 crore towards housing to start a
schemes for poor under the river bank. "In total, 3,600 new busi-
Prime Minister Avas Yojna houses will be built under ness, nine
(PMAY). the four schemes," Nehra months after
said.
the online property classified's board
"A soon as the state govern- RMC has also identified one fired co-founder and former chief
ment announced the scheme for 'un- slum near Pradhyuman Park for relo- executive Rahul Yadav.
attainable slum re-location', we sub- cation. According to RMC officials, the
mitted a detailed project report on central government will contribute Rs "The toughest phase in our history
February 15. To our surprise, we got 1.5 lakh, state government will give Rs were the last 9 months. Nothing
the approval for the four projects af- 4 lakh and the beneficiary will have to haunts a team more than a threat
ter undergoing multiple layers of pro- shell out Rs 1 lakh per housing unit. to the survival of what they stand
cess", RMC commissioner Vijay Nehra for," Sharma wrote in his farewell
told. Each housing unit will be of 30sqmt email to employees, referring to the
area (1 BHK) and all four projects will shutting down of a few departments
The four slums identified under the have all basic civic amenities, Nehra and the restructuring of the com-
scheme include Laludi Vonklo, added. pany under a new management.
DDA plans housing schemes in Dwarka, Vasant Kunj, "The leadership team's hard work is
now taking shape. It is with great at-
Rohini tachment that I choose to detach
and walk a different path," he said.
The Delhi Development Authority they found the rooms too small, a se-
(DDA) plans to build new housing nior DDA official said. The agency then Of the nine co-founders, five includ-
projects in Dwarka, Vasant Kunj and offered these surrendered flats to ing Sharma have now left the com-
Rohini. Work on other residential those in the waiting list. "But the re- pany. Three others hold top manage-
projects is already on in ment positions - Abhishek Anand is
Jasola, Rohini, Narela, sponse wasn't encourag- chief technology officer; Snehil Buxy
Jahangirpuri, Bakkarwala, ing. That's why we have is chief product officer; and Amrit
Kondli and Kalkaji. decided to announce a Raj is head of digital marketing.
new scheme," the official None of the founders holds a board
The DDA has earmarked said. position.
Rs 3,753.87 crore for con-
struction of the flats in its 2016-17 The district magistrate of In November, Housing said it would
budget. New Delhi, Sanjay Kumar, has informed focus on its home buying and selling
Arun Goel, vice-chairman of DDA, that business and scale down its listings
After the poor response to its 2014 requests for adjudication on DDA's vari- and rentals, commercial properties,
affordable housing scheme aimed for ous deals with customers will no longer short stays and land businesses.
the middle class and lower middle class be entertained at the CoS branch at
- 10,000 houses were returned by the Vikas Sadan. Housing competes with
allottees - the DDA is planning to come CommonFloor, 99Acres and
up with a new scheme to resell these In his letter, Kumar said only in "cases MagicBricks. So far, it has received
flats. where the DDA feels that the duty on more than $120 million (Rs 760
a particular instrument needs adjudi- crore) in funding and is valued at over
The owners had given up the flats, cation" should an application may be Rs 1,500 crore.
most of them one-bedroom units, as made to the stamp authority.
BANKING FINANCE | APRIL | 2016 | 21
