Puravankara shifts gears, unveils blueprint for 2011

The dark veil of the slowdown has finally lifted from over Bangalore's real estate market. And Puravankara, which had put new launches on hold, is now getting back to the drawing board. Vineetha Athrey reports.

One of Puravankara's high-end projects that the group had launched way back in 2003 was hit with the slowdown hitting the Bangalore real estate market hard, the last of the homes here were sold only recently. But now, with the uptick in the real estate sales, sources tell us that the group is gearing up to launch five new projects in 2011. These new projects will add 15 million square feet to the group's current 20.25 million square feet under under development. Four of these are semi-luxury homes, each carrying a price tag of between 50 and 80 lakh rupees. These will come up in Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore and Kochi, and cover a total area of 8.4 million square feet. The fifth project will belong to the group's affordable housing arm -- Provident. Homes at this second Bangalore project which covers 6 million square feet, will cost 15 to 25 lakh rupees each. Sources say the 5 projects will cost the group 2,250 crores -- with Purvankara Projects investing 1,550 crores, and Provident pumping in 700 crores. These will be funded through internal accruals and debt. That's not all. Provident is also excited about entering new tier 1 and 2 cities incl Madhurai, Coimbatore, Mysore, Hubli, Belgaum, Mangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat and Thane. The company is currently working on getting approvals before it could formally launch them in the second or third quarter of FY12.