Delhi Smart City in the Making

News Published in "The Financial Express"

Wednesday | Sep 16 | 2015

A Smart City is a city equipped with basic infrastructure to give a decent quality of life, a clean and sustainable environment through application of some smart solutions. In the approach to the Smart Cities Mission, On June 25, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi unveiled the ambitious Rs. 48,000-crore Smart City project. The Smart Cities Mission of the Government is a bold, new initiative.

By: Business Wire India | September 14, 2015 1:58 PM

A Smart City is a city equipped with basic infrastructure to give a decent quality of life, a clean and sustainable environment through application of some smart solutions. In the approach to the Smart Cities Mission, On June 25, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi unveiled the ambitious Rs. 48,000-crore Smart City project. The Smart Cities Mission of the Government is a bold, new initiative.

The core infrastructure elements in a Smart City would include adequate water supply, assured electricity supply, sanitation, including solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, affordable housing – especially for the poor, robust IT connectivity and digitalization, good governance, especially e-Governance and citizen participation, sustainable environment.

The Mission will cover 100 smart cities and its duration will be five years (FY2015-16 to FY2019-20). Each State has got at least one smart city with UP getting the maximum 13 smart cities followed by Tamil Nadu having 12 smart cities.

Is Delhi ready for a new skyline?

For the Capital, the project is bound to catalyze urbanization with several “Smart Sub-Cities” expected to come up in the future. The government is already in advance stages of “Land Pooling Policy”.

For Delhi, the biggest problem has been unplanned urbanization. Failure to deal with rampant unauthorized construction along with multiplicity of authority has weakened any remote scope of development. In fact, the situation is so watertight that the land-owning agency, Delhi Development Authority (DDA), has been unable to acquire a single additional plot for over a decade now. Further, Delhi’s population is expected to increase 1.5 times in next 5 years. In such a scenario, The Land Pooling or Land Assembly policy will play a pivotal role here as it would make the concept of unauthorized colonies obsolete by bringing in fundamental changes in acquisition and development of land. It is expected that 20,000-25,000 hectares of land will be unlocked through this policy, thereby resulting in the creation of 1.6 million houses, thus giving shelter to over 10 million people of Delhi.

What is Land Pooling Policy?

Under the policy, interested land owners or the intending developer can surrender their land and give it to the DDA along with a development charge. Once the land is pooled, the developer entity or land owners who surrendered their land shall get back 48 % or 60 % of the total land surrendered, as developable land. If the land surrendered is more than 20 Acres, 60% of the land shall be returned to land owner, if the land is less than 20 acres but more than 2 Acres 48 % of the land shall be returned to the land owner. The rest of the developed area shall be retained by DDA for creation of infrastructure like roads, parks, public and commercial buildings as well to monetize it against specific purposes. The housing and commercial projects will have to be developed within seven years. Additional time will be given only on payment of a penalty.

Making Delhi a Smart City

If experts are to be believed, Delhi is the ideal city to flag off the Smart City project. Delhi is majorly dived into five Zones for Land Polling Policy namely Zone L, N, K1, J and P2. ‘Zone J’ is the smallest with just one village (Neb Sarai) while ‘Zone L’, which is next to Dwarka, is the largest with an area of 22,840 hectares. It includes parts of Najafgarh, Dichaon Kalan, Qazipur, Samaspur Khalsa etc.

How are Developers and Home Buyers Benefited?

Various developers like Antriksh Group, Revanta Welfare Society, Colors Housing Society, IEGHS, Kamp Developers have already pre launched their Projects in L Zone near Dwarka and buyers have shown massive interest in these pre launches. Average basic price for most of these projects is approximately Rs. 4000 per sq ft. Most of the buyers are aware of the fact that it is a futuristic project and may take upto 10 years for inhabitation to start in these projects. 

Smart City is an amazing concept especially in Metro Cities like Delhi, provided the Government takes appropriate policy making decisions, and thereafter the developers do the construction activities on ground at a good pace. It is thus a thumb up investment from our side on a medium to long term perspective.