India is emerging global leader in solar power: World Bank

A new World Bank report has lauded Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission Phase 1 (JNNSM) for its effort to bring down the cost of solar power production in the country and also for achieving 2000 MW of power capacity from a meager 30 MW with in three years.

“What is significant is that JNNSM has been instrumental in bringing down the cost of solar power to a level that is competitive across the world,” says the report. The cost of solar energy has gone down to $0.15 per kWh, making India amongst the lowest cost destinations for grid-connected solar Photovoltaic (PV) in the world.

Solar power can reduce India’s dependence on imports of diesel and coal for power generation, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to energy security. It can also be used to power housing colonies, which consumes the major portion of power generated through conventional method.

Growth in this sector will help India increase its share of clean energy and help meet its target of reducing emissions per unit of its GDP by 20-25% by 2020 over 2005 levels.

The report identifies two unique features of the solar program, which has helped reduce tariffs – bundling of solar power with unallocated thermal generation and adoption of reverse auctioning. Such bundling of solar power with cheaper conventional power helped reduce solar power tariffs for distribution utilities. The reverse bidding mechanism enabled qualified bidders to benefit from declining global prices for solar components, thereby reducing the purchase price of both solar PV and Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) for the utilities.

“In a short span of three years, India has made impressive strides in developing its abundant solar power potential. With more than 300 million people without access to energy and industry citing energy shortage as key growth barrier in India, solar power has the potential to help the country address the shortage of power for economic growth,” said Onno Ruhl, World Bank country director in India.

“However, while India is clearly emerging as a global leader in the area of solar power, to achieve its target of adding 20,000 MW of solar capacity by 2022, it needs to address the key barriers and constraints that could come in the way of scaling up the solar program,” he added.

The report highlighted several challenges that could act as a barrier to India achieving its solar targets by 2022. These include lack of access to low cost financing; inadequate solar infrastructure; lack of raw materials for several solar PV manufacturers; and an underdeveloped supply chain leading to high inventory costs.

“Building on the success of Phase 1, the program now needs to focus on promoting financing of solar projects by commercial banks, developing shared infrastructure facilities such as solar parks and identifying comparative advantage of Indian manufacturing across the supply chain,” said Ashish Khanna, lead energy specialist and one of the authors of the report.

CREDAI blames ‘impediments’ for sector’s non-contribution to economy

C. Shekar Reddy

New Delhi: The Confederation of Real Estate Association of India has blamed the rising land price, labour and input costs, high cost of funding, drying of cash flows, undue delay in clearances among others, for the sector’s insignificant contribution to the growth of Indian Economy.


Addressing a conclave here with a theme, "Housing the Game Changer - Leading to Double-Digit GDP Growth", C. Shekar Reddy, President CREDAI National, has touched upon several issues haunting the sector, which he said, if measures are taken with right perspective, the industry will create huge supply of homes, there-by bring down the home prices.

Reiterating CREDAI’s resolve to bring in 'Single-window and Online Approval System' to facilitate the growth, he said, “The approving authorities will have to do away with their processes which are sluggish and cause inordinate delays in project plans approval etc which translate into a cost escalation of 35 - 40 percent in the construction costs.

Advising the Central and State governments to institute 'Single Window - Online Approval Mechanism' as a mandatory reform in the proposal for Rajiv Awas Yojna instead of an optional reform and get it implemented at the earliest, hen also urged the government to do away with the Floor Space Index (FSI) concept, take the approval process online and reduce tax burden on the industry.

He blamed the multiple taxation system for the escalation of home prices and reiterated that the sector’s tax burden should come down to less than 15% from the present level of 30-40%.
Citing the FSI norms adopted by Andhra Pradesh government, he appreciated the state government, saying, "Through an order, AP government has removed the concept of FSI thereby allowing the developers with unlimited FSI for the projects abetting wider roads and having bigger plots. By this simple initiative, even with higher land costs, the flats are working out to be less expensive making the houses affordable.” He urged other states too to do away with the FSI concept and help the homebuyers.

Commenting on the issue of funding for the real estate sector Reddy said, "The realty sector faces several restrictive norms in accessing bank finance. Here the funding to the realty sector is just three percent to developers, and 9 percent to home buyers. Due to inadequate funds access by the developers the growth of the sector is stunted. If the funding is made available from the banks the growth of the sector could be raised and costs of the houses could be brought down."

He expressed his concern while comparing the lending percentages with other countries. On the issue of Taxation, Reddy addressed that the National Habitat Policy suggests that the total registration charges has to be a maximum of 3% and urged the government to consider it as a mandatory reform of RAY and advice the states to implement to bring down the tax on housing.

Referring RERA Bill, ‘an act targeting against developers’ he said, other stake holders such as urban local boards, electricity authorities, fire departments are not part of the proposed Bill and if the bill with present provisions was passed, it would increase the cost of the housing by about 30%

Slowdown puts construction workers in Madurai in tight spot

MADURAI: V Sathiaseelan (40) from Bethaniapuram, who does centring work at construction sites is a troubled man these days as he is not able to find work after Diwali this year.

The reason: construction industry has come to a standstill in the district due to the skyrocketing of prices of construction materials and the slowdown has taken a heavy toll on him, reports TOI.

With three children, the middle-aged man is struggling to meet the ends meet without any income. Sathiaseelan's case is just one such instance of the one lakh construction workers like him who are all staring at the dark without adequate work in the industry for the last few months.

With agriculture turning dicey without adequate rains, construction is the next big industry to provide employment but the jobs turning scarce. Recently, the construction workers staged a demonstration in Tiruparankundram protesting the lack of work. It is a regular scene in Madurai like any other city as hundreds of construction workers gather in key points (Bethaniapuram, Narimedu, Anna Nagar, Anupanadi, K Pudur bus stand, Jaihindpuram and Vilakkuthoon) where the contractors pick them up for daily wages at construction sites.

"Two years back, we would get our daily work as soon as we reach these spots. However, for the last few months, though we have been gathering regularly, no one calls us for any work. We return home empty-handed worried about the family and daily expenses," lamented Nagarajan, a mason from Narimedu. The daily wages for a mason in Madurai is Rs 600 and assistants will get anywhere from Rs 250 to 300. With severe employment crunch, the workers are ready to bring down their wages but there are no takers. "I am ready to work for whatever amount is offered, but there is no work at all," Nagarajan vented out in frustration.

R Virumandi, a small contractor said that construction activities have slowed down a great deal. Out of 10 contracts they used to get during a particular period some years back, they could hardly get three to four now. "When we don't have contracts how can we employ the workers on site," he asked.

C Subbiah, urban district secretary, Construction Workers Federation of India estimated that there are more than 1 lakh construction workers in Madurai of which 30,000 of them are women. Out of them, 10,000 more workers prefer to go for daily wages and these are the ones who assemble at various points in Madurai everyday seeking jobs. "Not even 30% of the workers are getting daily jobs and we have never come across such a slump in the industry," he stated.

The slowdown in the industry has also affected auxiliary works like painting, plumbing, electrical works, carpentry and many more. M Balamurugan, a painting contractor said the slowdown is snowballing to allied works also. "Without much construction activity, we don't get work and the situation is the same for other professions like plumbing, carpentry, electrical," he said.

During their protest, the workers urged the government to intervene and take timely action. "The major reason for the slowdown is the skyrocketing prices. The government could at least step in, to regulate the sand supply which will be a temporary relief," Subbiah added.

Tata Value Homes sells over 50 homes online during GOSF

Brotin Banerjee

New Delhi: Tata Value Homes, a subsidiary of Tata Housing Development has said that it sold over 50 flats registering sale of over Rs 25 crore during the four-day Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF) organised by Google.

The second edition of GSOF took place from December 11-14.

"The company concluded India's first–ever online home booking with sales totaling more than Rs 25 crore. Tata Value homes sold more than 50 apartments in four days with payments via debit and credit cards during GSOF by Google," Tata Housing said in a release.

Out of the over 50 apartments that were sold, around 40 per cent were bought by people from tier II cities and NRI's contributed a little over 30 per cent to the overall sale, it added.

The sale offer attracted buyers from places like the UK, the US, Kenya, Malaysia, Dubai, Muscat globally and cities like Jodhpur, Ajmer, Baroda, Surat, Kanpur, Mangalore, Chikmangluru, etc, it said.

Tata Value Homes (TVHL), a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Housing, was the only real estate player to feature in the online sale.

"We have being thinking about integrating an online payment mechanism for quite some time but, finally decided to go ahead with it when Google offered us an opportunity to be a part of GOSF," Tata Housing CEO and Managing Director Brotin Banerjee said.

Increasing demand for portable and online transactions by consumers was another reason to participate in GOSF, he added.

Real estate sector needs encouragement: Girija Vyas

Girija Vyas

New Delhi: Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Girija Vyas today said the real estate sector, which is grappling with problems like manpower shortage, should be encouraged to boost the economic growth of the country.

Speaking at an event organised by CREDAI, Vyas said the urban population has registered a decadal growth of approximately 32 percent.

"There is a large stake in ensuring that cities and towns are efficient in order to help India achieve an eight percent GDP growth and to contribute to other developmental goals. Real estate has the potential to create the right economic environment for such a population expansion," Vyas said.

She said the sector is the second largest employer after agriculture and its multiplier effect on other industries is well known. The potential of this sector to create a positive impact on Indian economy should be encouraged, she said.

She added India's real estate sector continues to struggle with manpower shortage and by 2022 it alone will need 30 percent of the human resources which amount to 24.98 million personnel.

Vyas also said that due to ever-growing urbanisation "our cities face problems of land shortage, housing shortfall and severe stress on basic amenities and services."

"2011 census puts the slum population at about 18 percent of total urban population. As per my ministry's estimates, the housing shortage in India today is 18.78 million households, out of which 95 percent is for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Lower Income Group (LIG) categories," she said.

Vyas said this is "an alarming" situation and added that to prevent proliferation of slums has been an objective of the National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy 2007.

She said private developers had a big role to play in this area and low-budget housing, when subjected to mass production, made a great business opportunity with a social cause. PTI

Tata Steel launches environment friendly material for construction industry

JAMSHEDPUR: Tata Steel has planned to introduce a new value added product "Ground Granulated BF Slag (GGBS)" for the construction industry, which according to the company, a sustainable and cost-effective material.

GGBS has been widely used in developed economies for years and of late was also getting used in major construction projects in India, a company release said.

The product will not only increase compressive strength and durability of the concrete, but also significantly reduce the carbon footprint.

GGBS is blended with ordinary Portland cement (OPC) in ratio ranging from 30:70 to 70:30 to make Ready-Mix Concrete (RMC). The Mixing ratio depend on the required strength and nature of the concrete, the release said, adding this will cut down the cement cost in concrete by around 30-40 per cent.

Sandeep Kumar, EIC (Secondary Products), Tata Steel, assured that the company, as always would come up with better products at competitive prices.
Trial supplies of GGBS have been planned in a month's time and based on the market response, full scale commercial launch can be expected in next three months, an ET report quoting the release said, adding the product will be introduced in other major cities of eastern India like Kolkata, Ranchi and Bhubaneswar.

Realty investors pick Chennai over Mumbai, Delhi: PwC survey

According to a PwC survey, international as well as domestic investors are looking at newer cities in India with stable assets for investments, a trend that will be prominent in 2014, and accordingly Chennai jumps to the hot-list for the first time surpassing Mumbai and Delhi.  

 

According to the survey, titled ‘Emerging trends in real estate in Asia Pacific 2014’, Chennai has for the first time emerged in the top 25 real estate destinations list in the Asia Pacific region. 

“Cities like Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai have been in the top 25 list as preferred destinations. This indicates that there has been a slight shift in investor interest from conventional assets in prime markets to newer and stable assets in niche markets,” PwC India executive director Gautam Mehra said on Tuesday.

While Bangalore ranked 20th in the list, Delhi stood at 21st, Chennai 22nd and Mumbai 23rd. Bangalore and Mumbai slipped from their positions compared to 2013 rankings where they stood at 19th and 20th, while Delhi maintained its ranking at 21st position.