Afcons Infrastructure Ltd. wins Rs 938 Crore Kolkata Metro order

Order includes Design and Construction of Underground Metro from Howrah Maidan station to Central Station; 1st time in India a Transportation Tunnel Project running 20 Meter below a River.

Mumbai, Maharashtra, March 22, 2010 /India PRwire/ -- Afcons Infrastructure Ltd. (Afcons), the infrastructure arm of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, has bagged Rs 938-crore projects from the Kolkata Metro Corporation through competitive bidding. This project is to be completed in four years time.
Mr. Ramakrishna V Ramanan, Director Transportation Afcons Infrastructure Limited, said, "We are very happy to get ourselves associated with the Kolkata Metro Corporation through this order and our skill-set and engineering expertise will be on display once again in executing critical infrastructure projects such as Metro Rail in the development of the nation." "The project includes Design and Construction of Underground Metro from Howrah Maidan station to Central Station which is a part of East West Metro Project in Kolkata", He said.

Mr. Ramakrishna V Ramanan further said, "This is the 1st time in India a Transportation Tunnel Project is running Approx. 20 m below a River, and hence challenging. This project will be a boon to commuters travelling from Howrah to Kolkata City". "Latest technologies will be used in the construction of this under river link and will go a long way in boosting the transportation infrastructure of Kolkata City", He added.
Afcons Infrastructure Limited in a Joint Venture with a Russian company namely Transtonnelstroy Limited has bagged this prestigious contract which comprises of three underground stations at Howrah Maidan and Mahakaran respectively, one Crossover at Howrah Maidan and Twin Bored tunnels using earth pressure balancing machine which is essentially a tunnel boring machine in soft soil. Length of tunnel: Twin Bored Tunnel: 2954 m and approximately 520m is under the river Hooghly.

Notes to Editor
About Afcons Infrastructure Ltd.
Afcons Infrastructure Ltd. (Afcons), the flagship infrastructure, construction and civil engineering company of the Shapoorji Pallonji group, has an experience of five decades in construction industry. Its portfolio of completed projects comprises a wide variety of infrastructure projects in India. Afcons has successfully executed more than 170 structures along the Indian coastline. It has also successfully completed more than 115 bridges, flyovers, viaducts, two LNG storage tanks, underground Metro and 24 kilometers of elevated train corridors and has executed 2,700 lane kilometers of road works. Afcons has also successfully completed and are currently engaged in execution of projects through its international firms Afcons Construction Mideast LLC(Dubai) and Afcons Infrastructure International Ltd (Mauritius) in Middle East and Africa respectively. Among the Infrastructure and the construction companies it is known to cultivate the culture of completing projects on or ahead of schedule and also holds the recognition of being a Government recognized Export house.

Big Bazaar chain to get bigger in eastern region

22 Mar 2010, 0859 hrs IST, Writankar Mukherjee, ET Bureau

KOLKATA: Kishore Biyani’s Future Group has decided to invest more than Rs 125 crore over the next six months to expand the Big Bazaar chain of hypermarts in the East. The group intends to nearly double the number of Big Bazaar outlets from 22, at present, to 40 by October in the region. 

The latest thrust on expansion comes at a time when the group is betting on community retailing as the new business model for Big Bazaar. It has also created a sub-brand ‘Big Bazaar Family Centre’ that is completely focused on community retailing and is spread over 60,000-70 ,000 sq ft as compared to a Big Bazaar store spread over 35,000-40 ,000 sq ft. 

In fact, the Future group also plans to reorient all the existing Big Bazaar stores in the region as per this new business model. It has plans to convert two existing Big Bazaar stores in Ranchi and Guwahati into Big Bazaar Family Centres. 

“At present, Big Bazaar is spread over 10 lakh sq ft in the East. We will add another 6 lakh sq ft as part of the expansion process. While earlier the focus was to drive returns on a per sq ft, the model of this format has now changed completely. We now want to include products which may not lead to volume sales but will cater to the entire shopping basket of a family,” said Future Value Retail chief operations (East) Manish Agarwal. 

Future Value Retail, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Future Group flagship Pantaloon Retail India Ltd, is a newlyformed company that owns the value formats—Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar. 

As part of the expansion plan, Future Group will also enter into several newer markets in the East like Patna, Asansol, Agartala, Silchar, Deoghar, Bilaspur, Raniganj, Liluah and Gangtok. While the group already operates seven Big Bazaar stores in Kolkata, it plans to add another seven by October. 

“We’ve already acquired real estate for the new stores and they are under various stages of development. Once the proposed Big Bazaar expansion is complete, we will look at new opportunities for standalone Food Bazaar stores in the East,” said Mr Agarwal. Source: ET

Ambuja Realty to set up three IT parks in Kolkata

March 12, 2010 – 12:18 pm; Kolkata

Kolkata-based Ambuja Realty plans to invest over Rs 300 crore to set up three business parks in the city.

While two such parks will come up in the city’s IT hub Salt Lake Sector V Ambuja has plans to set up the third one in Rajarhat in the eastern fringes of Kolkata.

Plans are also afoot to set up office space in Siliguri, Patna and Raipur. Ambuja Realty chairman Harshavardhan Neotia said the company plans to start construction of new projects in couple of months. “We are in the process of receiving the necessary approvals. All the projects will be ready for possession within three years,” he added.

While Ambuja plans to invest Rs 200 crore for a 5-lakh sq ft business park in Salt Lake, the second project will be set up over 1.5 lakh sq ft and will entail an investment of around Rs 60 crore. On the other hand, the Rajarhat project (1.2 lakh sq ft) is coming close to the groups existing shopping mall, City Centre II, and will bear an investment of around Rs 35 crore. While we will definitely target the IT sector for leasing out and sell out of space, but the parks will be designed in a way which will have appeal for all the sectors. At the same time, we plan to set up office space in three of our upcoming mixed development projects in Siliguri, Patna and Raipur, said Mr Neotia.

Ambuja Realty announced the launch of the second phase of the groups first business park, Ecospace, in Rajarhat. The second phase comprising of two blocks will have a saleable area of 4.5 lakh sq ft. The entire project is spread over 10 lakh sq ft. Already 85% of the area in the first phase is leased or sold out to the likes of Bajaj Allianz, HDFC Bank, Voith, Thyssenkrupp, Indus Towers and Bayer Corp. Of the total project cost of Rs 300 crore,we have already invested Rs 200 crore in Ecospace. The project will be completely ready by April 2010. Source: MagicBrick

Telenor buys prime office space in Kolkata

March 10, 2010 – 1:16 pm, Kolkata

The leading Nordic telecom operator, Telenor of Norway, has snapped up 40,000 sq ft prime office space on long term lease in city’s Salt Lake Electronic complex (Saltlec) in the run-up to launching GSM services under the Uninor brand in West Bengal.
Prime floor space has been taken for an undisclosed sum at the South City Pinnacle Towers. The deal was done through Unitech Wireless, in which the Telenor Group has 67.25% stake.

Telenor has also put in place a 200-member team that will anchor its upcoming cellular rollout in the Kolkata and West Bengal circles. The leadership team will be headed by Unitech Wireless executive vice-president (Kolkata hub) Akash Das, who is an old veteran in the Telenor system. Key members of the Brand Uninor Kolkata leadership team are chief technology officer Chanchal Chakraborty; chief marketing officer Rahul Ray; chief HR officer Jayanta Saha, legal & regulatory affairs head Pradipta Chowdhury and project management head A Rahman.
Confirming the developments, a Unitech Wireless spokeswoman said: “The company has just taken 40,000 sq feet of floor space at the South City Pinnacle Towers on long term lease and our 200-member Kolkata team is in the process of shortly relocating there from our nearby temporary premises. The West Bengal (including Kolkata) GSM network rollout will be headed by Akash Das, who will also be responsible for Telenors network rollouts in Orissa and other eastern states.”
Company exectuives, however, declined to share the commercials of the just concluded floor space acqusition. It is learnt that Unitech Wirelessa JV between the Telenor Group and Delhis Unitech Group has inked tower-sharing agreements with Wireless-TT Info Service and Quippo Telecom Infrastructure in the run up to the mobile services rollout in Kolkata and West Bengal circles. By virtue of the tower-sharing agreement, the Uninor network in these circles will cover roughly 40,000 cell sites that will effectively cover 55-60 % of the population. In addition, towards network rollouts nationally, the company has given managed services contracts to Alcatel-Lucent,Nokia Siemens Networks, ZTE, Huwaei Tech and Sony Ericsson.
Source: MagicBrick

LIC to undertake realty projects across India

Kolkata:

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) would undertake realty projects, both commercial and residential, across the country.

Stating that LIC was the second largest real estate asset holder in the country after the Railways, besides being the largest investor, Chairman of LIC T S Vijayan said that LIC was looking at a real estate income of Rs 200 crore to Rs 300 crore.

He said LIC was at a premium income of Rs 1,76,000 crore during the current fiscal. To a query, he said that LIC was aiming at 18 per cent to 19 per cent growth in the next fiscal.

The insurer would be investing Rs 2 lakh crore in the current fiscal, out of which 15 per cent would be in infrastructure projects.

Laying the foundation stone of a residential housing complex in south Kolkata on Sunday, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that LIC was contributing to 4 per cent of the country’s GDP as well as paying hefty dividends to the exchequer.

Kolkata: City to get five new Metro routes

Kolkata:

Five new spans of the Metro Railway network in Kolkata have been included in the railway budget of 2010-11. This will come as a relief to many who were wondering if Mamata Banerjee would succeed in getting the projects cleared at a time when the Centre is not too keen on the railways getting involved in urban transportation projects.

The five extensions that have been included in the budget are: Joka-BBD Bag via Majerhat, Noapara-Barasat via Bimanbandar, Dum Dum-New Garia via Rajarhat, Baranagar-Barrackpore and Baranagar-Dakshineswar. Mamata has already laid the foundation stone for the extension of the metro network up to Dakshineswar.

Though Mamata said that the stretch between Garia Bazaar and New Garia ‘is likely’ to be completed soon, she did not commit to any time frame. The railway minister also did not mention any deadline for the arrival of new rakes for the Metro network. The overworked, old rakes are getting too worn out for use. More importantly, the number of rakes are proving inadequate to maintain the schedule, now that the network has been extended up to Garia Bazaar.

“The Metro ticketing system has collapsed completely. We had expected the minister to mention her plans for a new system and a date for arrival of new rakes. New projects are important but existing services should also be maintained to provide better services to commuters,” a senior railway official said.

Officials pointed out that the Joka-BBD Bag section will run on elevated tracks along the existing Circular Railway tracks. They also hope that the Dum Dum-New Garia stretch via Rajarhat will run along the EM Bypass, providing relief to those living on either side.

While Mamata has announced development of the suburban railway systems in Howrah and Sealdah, the much awaited announcement of a rail flyover at Dum Dum did not come. This flyover is extremely crucial for better suburban services. Three suburban sections converge at Dum Dum and commuters fall victim to severe congestion before entering Sealdah.

Mamata announced that new services will be introduced in the Sealdah-Canning, Sealdah-Namkhana, Sealdah-Bongaon, Howrah-Tarakeswar, Howrah-Bandel-Budwan, Sealdah-Ranaghat and Sealdah-Kolkata (via Ballygunge-Majerhat-BBD Bag) sections. A survey will also be conducted to link Howrah and Sealdah. The Ballygunge station will get a new building with all amenities including waiting hall, toilets and an approach road. It will be renamed Bahadur Shah Zafar.

The budget had no mention of an arc between Dhakuria and Lake Gardens that would enable trains from the Sealdah south section to reach BBD Bag via Majerhat, without touching Ballygunge. Officials, who were expecting a passenger terminal at Dankuni, were also disappointed. They believe that upgrade of services at Howrah station will not be possible till some load is shifted to Dankuni. Source: MagicBricks

Kolkata leads in home price rise, Blore sees crash

Revival in housing prices is sharper in Tier 2 cities of India than in the big metros, though the latter have seen appreciation in the value of their housing stock. While the slowdown knocked the stuffing out of the residential housing market in 2007, after a couple of painful years, prices are beginning to look up in most cities, the exceptions being Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Kochi.

Of the 15 cities covered by the National Housing Banks index to track housing prices in the country RESIDEX, 11 reported a jump in prices in the first half of 2009 from 2007 (base year). While Kolkata showed a dramatic rise of 59% albeit from a small base Delhi and Mumbai also saw appreciation upwards of 20%.

However the best story comes from Tier 2 cities. Most of these cities, growing fast on the back of local demand and as feeders to larger cities, clocked some of the highest gains. Cities like Bhopal,Faridabad and Ahmedabad showed jumps of 39%,36% and 27% respectively. With growth in India getting more inclusive and drawing in regions beyond the big metros, these cities exhibit Bharats growing purchasing power.

Worst hit, according to the Survey, are cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad whose economies are heavily dependent on their tech industrys demand power. These cities have been witness to a dramatic re-rating of their real estate market in the last decade and consequent rise in realty prices. They have been the worst hit by the slowdown with housing prices collapsing rather dramatically.

In Bangalore’s case the fall is a humungous 42%. For Hyderabad the decline is around 35%. In these cities over-supply exacerbated the matter. Realtors who built towers in the sky in the hope that the tech crowd would buy them as soon as they built them, found themselves caught on the wrong foot as a severe recession in the US and Europe hit their businesses.

Big cities with a better business mix like Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi, which have strong manufacturing presence and a robust services industry, fared much better with the market recouping faster and posting positive gains. After Kolkata, the biggest rise in prices has been in Mumbai at 24%, followed by Delhi at 21%.

As these prices are for the first half of the last calendar year, it is likely that the upturn has further consolidated. Recent surveys by firms has shown that even in cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad prices are beginning to rise on the back of a dwindling inventory,stability in jobs and pay hikes for the prime consumption class young, middle income couples. According to the Economic Survey,the share of the realty sector in the GDP continues to rise.From 8.9% in 2005-05, it has risen to 9.2% in 2008-09. Source: Magic Brick

Affordable housing complexes from NBCC stable

Atanu Kumar Das / New Delhi February 19, 2010, 13:47 IST

State-owned National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd (NBCC) is coming up with affordable housing complexes in Uttar Pradesh, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Kochi and Patna.

The Mini Ratna PSU under the urban development ministry plans to build 7,000 houses each in Delhi-Saharanpur Highway, UP and Gurgaon. While the minimum price of a two-bedroom house will be Rs 7 lakh, the maximum can go up to Rs 14 to Rs 15 lakh.

NBCC has allotted 448 affordable houses in Rajarhat, Kolkata, where the price of a two-bedroom flat is Rs 14 lakh and a three-bedroom flat costs Rs 18 lakh. It will allot another 352 houses in the next phase of the project.

While the projects in Kochi and Patna are likely to be started in the next six months, the Gurgaon and UP projects are expected to be completed in the next two years.

“Affordable housing is the need of the day and the prices at which we are providing houses are very lucrative. We have sold apartments in Kolkata at Rs 1,325 per sqft and that is half the current rates of the market,” said Arup Roy Choudhury, Chairman and Managing Director, NBCC.

The company hopes to grow its turnover to Rs 3,000 crore this fiscal, compared to Rs 2044 crore in the previous financial year.

Apart from building residential projects, NBCC is also working on numerous power projects of BHEL, NTPC and others. “We do a lot of power projects, which account for 15-to-20 per cent of our revenue. Our primary profitability comes from these projects,” said Choudhury.

The company is also constructing 500 ministerial bunglows in New Moti Bagh, Delhi, with an area comprising of 123 acres of land. Source: Business Standard

Residential market to lead realty recovery in 2010: CRISIL Research

A recent 10-city CRISIL Research report on the real estate market indicates that demand in the residential market is expected to turn positive in 2010 owing to improvement in affordability, steady economic growth and greater liquidity. However a decline in the currently over-priced capital values of all the three real estate segments - residential, commercial and retail - will persist through 2009. Further the commercial and retail markets will continue to witness erosion in lease rentals through the next two years.

The CRISIL Research City Real(i)ty Report provides comprehensive information and analysis of more than 400 areas across 88 micro markets in 10 cities - Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai-MMR, NCR and Pune.

Mr. Sudhir Nair, Head, CRISIL Research says, “Accelerated growth of Indian economy, recovery of global
economy, improved liquidity and expected fall in interest rates are key factors that will signal demand revival in the residential segment. This segment is likely to see a much faster revival due to strong underlying demand for housing and supply coming at attractive price points.”

Sudhir further adds, “Demand in the commercial and retail segment is likely to remain under stress for the next two years owing to excess supply and weak offtake.” The CRISIL Research City Real(i)ty report indicates that capital values for residential sector and lease rentals for commercial and retail properties have substantially corrected till March 2009 due to a slowdown in both the domestic and global economies, and also due to real estate becoming unaffordable. Cities such as Kochi, Chandigarh and Pune, which have greater investor presence as against end-users, witnessed a greater fall in capital values compared to other cities.

The situation is expected to continue through 2009 and 2010, particularly so for the commercial and retail segments. However CRISIL Research believes that demand for houses will improve in 2010, backed by lower home loan interest rates as well as better job security owing to higher growth in the economy. Hence, capital values are likely to stabilise in the first half of 2010, and increase during the second half of the year.
CRISIL Research feels that the pace of economic recovery and confidence revival will have an impact on
sentiments across all the real estate categories and will be an important variable to watch out for.