The Millennium City remained engulfed in darkness for the seventh consecutive day on Saturday with anger rising among residents along with scorching temperatures. Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), the power distribution agency, claimed that electricity was restored to a great extent by Thursday. However, many areas like sectors 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39 and villages Badshahpur, Mohammadpur, Narsinghpur, Sihi, Khandsa, Jharsa, Behrampur, among other areas, were subjected to long power cuts even on Saturday. According to locals, a technical snag at a 220kv DHBVN sub-station at Badshahpur has resulted in the power cuts. The residents are angry over the officials’ lax attitude in rectifying the fault. “How much

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Traffic at Sohna road came to a standstill on Friday night after angry villagers blocked the road to protest the detention of three local men by the police in connection with a murder case. The protestors put large stones and sat on the road for nearly 15 hours. Vehicular movement towards Gurgaon, Nuh, Tavru and other places was severely affected. Commuters had to take long detours as the police diverted traffic to other routes. The situation normalised around 10am on Saturday when senior police officials intervened in the matter and agreed to the demand of releasing the three detainees — Yamin, Isha and Islam. Despite assurances, the villagers lifted the

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The skyline of Indian cities could soar as the government considers permitting vertical growth with the aim of checking runaway realty prices and generating resources to upgrade urban infrastructure for future growth. A Planning Commission steering committee, in its draft report, has recommended providing additional FSI (floor space index; the ratio between built-up area and plot size) as development rights, but said it should not come free of cost. The panel said the charges for additional FSI and land-use conversions should be at least 50% of the circle rate in the area and should be determined professionally. It added that additional FSI should be permitted selectively. The commission’s steering group on urbanization said the revenue from grant of additional FSI should be “suitably ring-fenced for funding infrastructure projects to sustain higher FSI”. “The proposals, if accepted, would substantially increase availability of housing stock and moderate realty prices,” said an urban development ministry official. Calling the present density regulations in Indian cities “archaic”, the report noted that Indian cities had the lowest FSI in the world. “This (densification) should be part of a balanced strategy for expanding the effective supply of prime land and, in the process, raising funds to finance urban infrastructure improvements,” the committee noted. The Centre should introduce incentives that encourage states and cities to pursue densification strategies for future urban development, it said. Many cities were already levying such charges for additional FSI in some form or the other, it noted. Hyderabad, for instance, has a ‘city level impact fee for high rise buildings’ and Ahmedabad has systematically been selling a limited amount of additional FSI. The committee said higher FSI should go hand in hand with provisions such as amalgamation of plots to make housing more affordable. Rather than the current practice of having a blanket FSI across a city, the panel wanted mixed land use promoted through the concept of granular FSI. “Densification with mixed land use as a planning strategy needs to be followed by the authorities to accommodate future urbanization needs,” said a ministry official.

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The much talked about and widely anticipated Real Estate Regulation and Development Bill may not get cleared in the current Budget Session of Parliament, since the government is getting cold in the wake of the Union Government running into opposition from the states on a host of issues, including the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre and Lokpal Bill. The Centre has reportedly decided to go slow on the bill to regulate India’s burgeoning real estate sector. The strategy now is to introduce the Bill in the later part of the Budget Session so that if there is protest across the board in the House, it could be passed on to

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Mumbai: Eleven Maharashtra legislators indicted in the yet-to-be-released CAG report, had declared their monthly income ranging from Rs 2,500 to Rs 12,500 to acquire large flats under the government quota in Ashirwad Co-operative Housing Society in suburban Mumbai. According to the CAG report, which is yet to be tabled in the legislature, the legislators include Deputy Speaker Vasant Purke, EGS Minister Nitin Raut, Water Resources (Krishna Valley) Minister Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar, Culture Minister Sanjay Deotale. Purke, who was the EGS Minister at the time of allotment, had declared a total monthly family income from all sources of Rs 2,500. Nimbalkar had declared an income of Rs 5,500, while Deotale had

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NEW DELHI: Six months ago, Amish Kapoor turned down an offer from a Noida-based broker for a ready apartment, saying it was priced more than the market. The 30-year-old, who works as a flight steward with an international airline, said he would rather go for an under-construction flat, which came a tad cheaper. He is now ruing that decision. Last week, when he went hunting for an apartment in the same area, the ready flat was 35% more expensive, while the under construction apartment, where construction seemed to have slowed down, was on offer for the same price as last time around. Prodded by his family, he decided to shell

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A major dilemma many property investors face is the percentage of disposable income that should ideally be set aside for property as part of the portfolio. Unlike other conventional asset classes, property is one asset that necessarily has to be a long-term investment. It cannot be part of a portfolio churn at every turn of the markets or periodic rebalancing of the portfolio. It is therefore necessary to get the arithmetic right the very first time. Then, property will turn into the most fruitful investment made through a lifetime. Age While most wealth managers advise that the investment process should begin as early as the first salary, invariably, the first

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Yamuna Expressway, the rapidtransit corridor between Delhi and Agra, will be operational soon, as the new government in Uttar Pradesh has shown it the green flag. It was originally scheduled to be operational by December 2011. Once Yamuna Expressway is open, the drive from Greater Noida to Agra will take just 90 minutes. One of the key infrastructure project of Mayawati government in the public-private partnership , the Yamuna Expressway, besides connecting Delhi to Agra through Noida-Greater Noida Expressway, will touch 1,182 villages of Gautam Budh Nagar, Bulandshahar , Aligarh, Hathras (Mahamaya Nagar) and Mathura district. The 165kmlong Yamuna expressway is one of the longest access-controlled six-lane rigid pavements in

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NEW DELHI: The real estate industry, which has been grappling with low sales due to lack of consumer demand, is caught in a bind as input costs have soared due to rise in freight and coal prices. This rise in costs has hit at the ability of real estate companies to reduce prices to prop up demand, say industry executives. Prices of cement, steel and labour have risen sharply in the past three months due to reduced supplies and a tight labour situation as resumption of the agriculture season has led to an increase in workers’ wages. Real estate companies have had to raise wages to keep labourers from deserting

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Faced with rising interest rates, growing competition and stagnation in property market, a growing number of property developers are now moving away from traditional marketing tools and adopting unusual techniques to stand out and woo homebuyers. From ‘viral marketing’ to ‘experiential marketing’ and from ‘personalized marketing’ to staging special events, developers seem to be trying out all possibilities to raise their visibility in a cluttered marketplace as well as drum up consumer interest. Delhi and NCR-based Ashiana Housing, the pioneer of retirement homes in India, for instance, has created a novel concept of ‘experiential marketing’ , with the introduction of ‘trial apartments’ , which is aimed at giving customers a

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