Policies help drive out blues for real estate sector

Listing out a host of measures rolled out by the government over the last three years to assist the realty sector, including uninterrupted power supply, transparency and ease in doing business and facilitating rapid industrialisation, the state's minister for panchayat raj and rural development Jupally Krishna Rao on Tuesday said that the industry has witnessed phenomenal growth since 2014. Speaking at the launch of the research report on Telangana's real estate sector, 'The new face of India's growth story', he said that the property market, which had undergone prolonged suffering for four-five years has finally "settled down". And even as he remained non-committal about when the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) Act would come into force in the state, Rao assured industry players that the problems pertaining to RERA and GST would be resolved soon. The latest report, which charts a 30% year-on-year increase in launch of new residential units and a massive 6.5 million square feet absorption in office space in 2016, has been jointly compiled by the Telangana Real Estate Developers Association (TREDA) and global realty services firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL). "This government is committed to promoting the housing sector and as part of its new housing policy it plans to build two-three lakh houses every year. Also, it is expected to spend Rs 10,000 crore on Hyderabad's infrastructure, which includes expanding the Metro Rail, Outer Ring Road and building skyscrapers and flyovers," Rao said, while appealing to industry players to adhere by the rules and "not take customers for a ride". He said that the authorities would take action against illegal layouts and violators. Reiterating how the government's "proactive measures" have revamped the property market, Sandip Patnaik, JLL's regional managing director (Hyderabad) and head of capital markets (South India) said that Telangana has the potential to be among the top two in corporate real estate. "Over the last two years, a lot of Fortune 500 companies who earlier shied away from investing here are now showing faith in Hyderabad. All this credit goes to the leadership of the government," Patnaik said.