DLF fast-tracks New Bangalore mega project

DLF fast-tracks New Bangalore mega project
Financial Chronicle

NEW Bangalore, DLF’s and the country’s biggest real estate project, appears set to finally get off the drawing board and land on terra firma. The Rs 60,000 crore project was cleared by the then JD(S) regime of Karnataka in September last year. But the government itself ran into trouble and DLF decided to lie low and wait for another day.

That day, it seems, has arrived, after the BJP , supported by a handful of independents, wrested power in the state last week. Since then, DLF has been real quick. It has already submitted town plans for the Rs 60,000 crore project to the new government.

“The BJP government appears to be in a comfort able position to complete its five-year tenure,” says a senior DLF official. “We will execute it on top priority,” he says.

Of the 9,175 acres earmarked for the project, DLF will develop 8,335 acres. The rest will be green areas. The company will pay the Karnataka government Rs 57 lakh for every acre. Forty per cent (or, about Rs 22 lakh) of this will go to the farmers whose land will be taken over. Rest of the money will accrue to the state exchequer.

The DLF official says his company has had no hand in the apportioning of the land money.

“How it is shared between the government and the farmers is for the government to decide. We have no role in this.”