The real estate industry might have some of its members listed on the Forbes (India version) list of 100 richest men in India showing the boom in real estate industry. This could perhaps be attributed to the economic growth in India leading to infrastructural demands. The economy has seen an influx of young aspirants heading for the cities and the young careerist soon begin to hunt for a â€dream house’. Considering that a â€home of our own’ will always be on the anvil the real estate industry could seem to be on solid ground yet it faces some real time challenges from urbanization. With 90% of the government revenues coming from 30% of the urban population it is but apparent that urbanization is important for economic development. What needs to be done to mange the disparate conditions in the cities is long term planning. A well planned and organized urban development will be a boon not only to the real estate industry but to the urban society as a whole. Today the cities have grown beyond imagination into unplanned, horrendous monstrosities where the dwindling services in housing, water, healthcare, sanitation and energy have only mitigated the problems. The 2001 census says that 25% of cities are taken up by slums. In addition to the slums urban dwellers have to face the prospect of poor sanitation, environmental degradation, poor health services and infrastructure that is strained beyond repair. Why India needs to fix this unplanned urban growth urgently is because by 2050, about 914 million Indians are going to be living in cities according to the UN World Urbanization Prospects. Instead of this being good news for the real estate industry it is no news unless water, electricity, sanitation, solid waste management are in place. The concept of the â€integrated township’ has taken root in a big way to counter some of the problems that urbanization brings in its wake. However these sophisticated townships cannot give a miss to problems of water and electricity. The real estate industry cannot fail to suffer as a result of this infrastructural drawback. Failing civic infrastructure can break the back bone of the real estate industry especially if there is a backward flow of human capital from the cities to green belts. A productive industry cannot run efficiently without talent but it is likely that the thinking population could depart from the sprawling mess to pastures that are not only greener but more manageable. Red tapism that winds the real estate industry in a tight bind could also strangulate it unless the system becomes more transparent and less complex. Before a project is finally started, the builder will already have gone through 24 to 36 months of harrowing red tapism which involves buying the land, getting the necessary permits and also the various approval certificates before they can think of the â€bhoomi pooja.’ Unplanned urban development is not only detrimental to real estate but to macro-economic development as well. Any apathy shown now in addressing the weaknesses in the cities, exaggerated by infrastructural failures will definitely spell doom for the real estate industry besides causing unmitigated problems for the urban society.
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