Is Investing In Smart Cities A Good Option For NRIs?
The Indian real estate sector is gradually showing positive signs with renewed consumer interests after prolonged sluggish sales and price plateaus. One of the first initiative taken up by the BJP government after coming to power was that of 100 smart cities. This, in a way, injected the entire real estate sector with a fresh lease of life. The government walked the talk when it allocated a sum of Rs 7,060 crore for development of these smart cities across the country in the annual Union Budget. Subsequently, real estate developers are increasing their focus on development of such smart cities with some projects already underway. Relaxation in FDI policies in the realty sector is also likely to act as a catalyst for developers to focus on development of such smart city projects.
Smart City Development and Technological Advancements: Smart cities would be offering technological advanced tools in terms of traffic management, security, waste management to city maintenance, offering a great upside for investors of both commercial and residential projects. Each smart city will be connected to a smart city grid offering dedicated power supply, optimizing transmission and distribution of power. Smart cities would boast of an energy saving and modern public transport system, solar power streetlights, a cloud server for all official work cutting out on paper transactions making it green and energy complaint hubs. The use of advanced technological tools is likely to enhance the living experience of all smart city projects offering a never before experience of urban city dwelling to the residents.
Current Smart City Projects offering Impressive Returns: Kochi Smart City, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) in Ahmedabad, Dholera in Gujarat, Naya Raipur in Chhattishgarh and Wave Infratech’s 4,500-acre smart city in NCR are some of the popular smart city projects that have already taken a lead with work in progress. The smart city projects have already started giving early investors an impressive return of 10-15 per cent with experts suggesting a much better long term investment prospective.
NRIs and Smart City Investment Opportunities: For the non-resident Indians, smart city projects offer a great investment opportunity as the long term returns on such projects are likely to be very impressive. What’s more, being a smart city development program, non-resident Indians can track the progress of the city development online with various builders of international repute likely to hop on the smart city development bus in the coming future. With real estate prices getting stagnant in metropolitan cities, smart cities offer a far greater chance of impressive returns compared to other residential and commercial projects.
Interested in Investing in Smart City Project? Think Long term: The only downside or a significant aspect for NRIs and other domestic investors thinking of investing in smart city projects is to have a long term investment outlook. While short term gains are impressive to the tune of 10-15 per cent, the real return on investments would be unlocked only once the smart city projects are ready for possession. For those investors willing to invest in a long term prospective of ten years or so, smart city development may well turn out to be their big ticket towards money making opportunity for real estate projects.
