Navi Mumbai real estate market collapses

Dire economic situation and rising inflation has taken a heavy toll on the Navi Mumbai real estate market in the past 2 months.The proof of this collapse has come from the registration figures in the registration dept and the amount of new proposals being subimtted in the NMMC and CIDCO town planning dept.Developers are struggling for cash and coming up with creative schemes like 80:20 scheme wherein the buyer pays only the 20% booking amount and the rest only after the project is completed,hence the buyers avoid paying the pre-emi interest to the bank.Most of the builders only make inquiries and only submit proposals but do not make further payments to obtain approvals.Developers have no money to pay the fungible FSI fee.Fungible FSI is the additional money the developer has to pay for enclosed balconies,flower bed area etc.Earlier the builders used to get these areas free but after manipulation was detected by most of them,the BMC smartened up and started charging money for the same.
This slowdown is the most significant in the past 2 years.One only needs to visit the registration dept in Belapur to witness the complete collapse of the market.
The effect of this collapse is primarily in the newly developing areas like Ulwe,Kamothe,Khandeshwar,Panvel,Dronagiri,Kharghar etc.Premium locations in well developed areas like NRI complex,Sector 19 Nerul,etc are relatively less affected due to the scarcity of good flats in good societies in these localities.

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Petitioner against illegal buildings shot dead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WGIACEMing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kwG4N3xCvE

Navi Mumbai police have arrested an ex-cop in connection with the murder of builder Sunil Kumar Lahoria. The ex-police officer, Samuel Amolik, had been dismissed from service for his alleged links with the underworld. He has been charged with murder and conspiracy and remanded to police custody till February 22..
Police say that scrutiny of Mr Kumar\’s mobile call data record revealed that he had received several calls from those who attacked Mr Lahoria before the murder.
Mr Lahoria was shot dead in front of his office on Saturday morning in the satellite town of Navi Mumbai. The entire murder was caught on the CCTV camera installed at the entrance of the office.
At around 8 am, as soon as Mr Lahoria, owner of SK Brothers, stepped out of his white BMW in front of his office in Vashi, a man in a security guard\’s uniform shot him six times from a point-blank range. Another man then attacked Mr Lahoria with a chopper when he fell on the ground. As they were trying to escape, one of them was caught by locals.
Mr Lahoria, 52, was rushed to the Fortis Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

Latest Update (21st Feb 2013)

Two accused in the murder of Mr.Sunil Kumar Lahoria, namely, Mr.Anurag Garg (Dimensions architect) and Mr.Suresh Bijlani are absconding and the police is on the lookout for them. They had filed for anticipatory bail in the Thane court but it was rejected. It has come to light that the threat calls made to the relatives of Sunil Kumar were indeed made from Suresh Bijlani\’s number. Six other builders were also interrogated and their passports confiscated. Bijlani did not submit his passport saying that it was in the renewal process.

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2011/aug/070811-Navi-Mumbai-Chief-Minister-Prithviraj-Chavan-illegal-construction.htm

Navi Mumbai airport decision today

The State Board for Wildlife (Maharashtra) will decide the fate of the Navi Mumbai airport today, 24 Jan 2013.As stated in an earlier article, the airport land falls within 10 kms of the protected Karnala Bird sanctuary.

In early March 2012,Debi Goenka, of the Environment Action Trust, filed a complaint with the Chief conservator of Forests (Thane region) and he complained about it to Union environment secretary Tishya Chatterjee, asking the ministry to revoke the green clearance.

Goenka alleged that CIDCO officials had hidden the fact that:-

1. The Land earmarked for the airport contained 321 acres of reserved forest area.(Reserved forest land cannot be destroyed to develop the land in any way).
2. The Airport boundary wall is less than 10 kilometers from the Karnala bird sanctuary.(According to the Environment protection act,an airport cannot come up less than 10 kilometers from a wildlife sanctuary).

This was verified personally by Debi Goenka along with CIDCO officials. Later,the Chief conservator of forests conducted his own survey and found the allegations true. The distance was found to be less than 10 kms and the land revenue records showed that 321 acres were indeed Reserved forest Land.
Subsequently, the Chief conservator of forests, Mr.Pol, withdrew the permission saying “We have conveyed our objections to the principal secretary and the Navi Mumbai authority (CIDCO) will have to seek fresh permission from both the state wildlife advisory board and the central wildlife advisory board,” said Pol.

False Claims by CIDCO
Cidco claims that only 70 hectares of land falls under the eco sensitive zone (10 kms radius of Karnala bird sanctuary) and that Supreme court in its 2000 order had directed all state govts to mark eco sensitive zones coming under its jurisdiction and that State board of Wildlife had not yet earmarked the eco sensitive zone around Karnala bird sanctuary. However, interestingly, CIDCO officials cleverly avoid mentioning that the airport contains 321 acres of Reserved Forest area. Reserved forest areas cannot be developed under any circumstances. CIDCO had deliberately hidden this fact during the planning stages and later on.
The state board of wildlife will submit a report to the National board for Wildlife which will take a call on whether to give CIDCO the clearance or not.
The decision will be eagerly awaited.
Apart from these major hurdles, the proposed airport is also facing a land acquisition problem. It requires 2,042 hectares of land from which 1,405 hectares is already with CIDCO, but 485 hectares of land is privately-owned.
These private parties are demanding much larger compensation packages, thereby forcing infrastructure companies, including Larsen & Toubro, to question the viability of the entire project. Environmentalists are also putting pressure on the MoEF highlighting the ecological havoc the project will cause since it involves the diversion of two rivers, the Gadhi and Ulwe and the decimating of 400 acres of mangrove forests.
In the light of these ‘new’ developments, the actual construction work is unlikely to start before 2014,provided the green signal comes from the Ministry of Environment and forests as early as possible.
The tendering process is yet to begin and once the winning bidder bags the project, it will take another six to eight months for the feasibility studies. CIDCO, which was to commence the levelling and filling of the land before construction, now has to wait for these clearances from the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF)
In light of these developments, it is anybody’s guess when or if the airport will ever come up here.
In the meanwhile, investors and flat purchasers wait with baited breath for the final decision of the ministry.

More information…..

http://business-standard.com/india/news/navi-mumbai-airport-bombay-hc-rejects-cidcos-plea-for-fca-exemption/499610/

Thane district does not have an anti encroachment demolition squad

While all civic bodies like BMC and NMMC have their own strong anti encroachment set up to evict encroachers and demolish illegal buildings, the Thane collectors office lacks one. This is thanks to the State Govt. In such a situation almost all the land in the district including the local self govt jurisdictions has been encroached upon. The Collector has several hundred acres of land in areas of Navi Mumbai like Turbhe etc. Hence it is for all to see the state of affairs in Turbhe, which is the den of all sorts of illegal activity in Navi Mumbai. Other than huge slums, one can find all sorts of illegal activities like liquor making, prostitution etc in Turbhe. Personnel of the PWD perform the anti encroachment activities in the district. Some of them do not even know how to carry out demolition. Sometimes its the Nayab Tehsildars who handle the demolition work in absence of Tehsildars leading to little or no demolition. Thane district has 15 talukas,7 municipal corporations and 11 municipal councils.

Homi Patrawala of Snowgold charged for forgery and cheating

Owner of Snowgold constructions faced a setback as the high court dismissed his plea to quash the FIR against him in a forgery and cheating case. Patrawala can approach the supreme court and has stayed the the order for 8 weeks.
Patrawala approached court after another builder,Ashok Mohnanai of Ekta builders,filed an FIR against him for cheating and forgery.
As per Ekta builders,Patrawala took money as brokerage for a deal between Mohnanai and 70 year old Sushila Jadhav,who owns a bungalow on 13th Road,Khar West.Mohnanai also purchased an adjacent plot owned by Patrawala.Mohnanai claims that the money he gave for Sushila Jadhav never reached her and that Patrawala diverted the entire amount to his companies.He also donated money to trusts of politicians.
Patrawala had approached Mohnani with the offer of the bungalow in June 2010.By March 2011,he had completed all formalities and paid all the money through cheques and a cheque of Rs 6 crore for Jadhav.When Jadhav did not vacate the plot even after making all payments,Mohnani visited Jadhav only to find out that Patrawala had not forwarded the money to jadhav and had instead usurped all the money himself.Patrawala had also made a slum dweller from kanjur marg open an account in the name of Sushila Jadhav into which he deposited the cheque issued by Mohnani for Sushila Jadhav.
Mohnani then approached the economic offences wing.