Government-owned National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) has completed 7,100 of the 38,159 houses in the erstwhile Amrapali projects in Noida and Greater Noida, which were stuck for years. Sources said completing the remaining houses would require nearly over Rs 5,000 crore and the agency would have to explore additional options such as selling the unused Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in the existing projects to get the required funds.
Speaking to TOI, NBCC chairman and managing director P K Gupta said so far 2,650 completed units have been handed over to the homebuyers. “We have around 11,000 labourers deployed at 23 projects. Our focus is to complete them quickly despite several challenges. It was a very challenging task to complete the projects, which were stuck for years at different stages. But we are progressing at a good speed. We are confident of succeeding in the sale of all unsold inventories and generating the fund required to complete the projects,” he added.
NBCC has made the roadmap for completing the projects by March 2025. Gupta said for them getting the homebuyers to pay the instalments in the stuck projects was the biggest challenge as they had lost hopes of getting their houses. “Once we took up construction on a large scale after arranging funds, the buyers regained faith and started paying their instalments,” he added.
Responding to a question whether this should be the model where new players are taking over stuck projects, Gupta said such real estate firms or agencies must arrange funds to start work upfront to get buyers’ support and revive the projects.
For reviving the projects, NBCC has raised Rs 2,150 crore. Officials said nine out of the 23 projects – Sapphire-1&2, Princely Estate, Silicon City-1, Platinum & Titanium, Silicon-2, Leisure valley Villas and Dream Valley Villas – are nearing completion.
Sources said NBCC has been facing several challenges such as dual allotment, a large number of untraceable defaulter buyers, litigation and claims.
The agency has spent around Rs 4,121 crore till January while it has received around Rs 3,950 crore from different sources including the instalments paid by homebuyers and sale of unsold units.
Sources said NBCC would require a total of approximately Rs 9,567 crore for completing all the projects while the estimated availability of funds from different sources is pegged at Rs 6,977 crore. They added that nearly half of this deficit can be met from the sale of unused FAR in the existing projects. The agency is likely to seek the Supreme Court’s approval for the sale of unused FAR.