Fast-tracking infra projects will give good signal: P Hinduja

http://m.economictimes.com/news/economy/infrastructure/fast-tracking-infra-projects-will-give-good-signal-p-hinduja/articleshow/45086329.cms Fast-tracking infra projects will give good signal: P Hinduja
NEW DELHI: With infrastructure holding the key to India's economic recovery, government should fast-track projects in this sector to send positive signals to investors, noted industrialist Prakash Hinduja has said.

A $250 billion investment is needed just to boost basic urban infrastructure to get the lumbering economy to grow faster.

Hinduja, Chairman of the Hinduja Group of Companies in Europe, said there is also a need to concentrate on enhancing the India's technological and manufacturing prowess.

"Programmes on infrastructure, many projects are not moving. Foreigners have invested in infrastructure... If the government works on them and puts them on fast track, this will give a good signal to the world," Hinduja told PTI.

Praising the efforts of the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said government's track record in the last 5 months has generated a positive sentiment among the global business community.

"The way government has been moving in these 5 months gives a good signal to the world. Stock market has gone up. Different projects are coming in. Investments are coming from abroad. In these 5 months so much movement has happened. It gives a proper feel that change is happening," he added.

Government has already made revamping the infrastructure sector in the country as its top priority with Modi chairing a high-level meeting earlier this month to review the progress on inter-linking connectivity-related infrastructure sectors.

Reviewing work in connectivity-linked infrastructure sectors, Modi has emphasised on faster inter-ministerial coordination and resolution of issues and laid stress on achieving visible results in clear time frames.

He has also directed strict monitoring of projects, based on monthly completion of targets.
Last month, stressing on the need to scale up urban infrastructure, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the country needs to invest an estimated $250 billion over next 20 years for basic urban infrastructure like roads, transport and water supply.

Analysts say that infrastructure in India is poised for an explosive growth. Consultancy firm PwC in a report has said India's share of the overall Asia-Pacific infrastructure market is expected to continue to grow, reaching around 12.5 per cent or $6.6 trillion by 2025.

Besides infrastructure, Hinduja said, the government also needs to concentrate on developing the technological and manufacturing potential of the country.

He added: "The most important issue for India is technology and manufacturing. Like 'Make In India' is a good concept, but how to make that happen. You need technology. So slogan is that technology is top priority to be brought into the country where we are able to learn the skills and learn other programmes."

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पुण्यात गृहप्रकल्पासाठी "अच्छे दिन'

पुण्यात गृहप्रकल्पासाठी "अच्छे दिन' http://epaper1.esakal.com/5Nov2014/Enlarge/PuneCity/page4.htm
पुणे - दिल्ली, अहमदाबाद, बंगळुरू, मुंबई यांसारख्या महानगरांतील घरे बांधण्याचा वेग कमी होत असताना पुण्यातील गृहबांधणी मात्र चांगलीच वाढली आहे. देशात कोलकत्यातील घरबांधणीचा वेग गतवर्षीच्या तुलनेत सर्वाधिक 28 टक्के होता, तर पुण्यात तो दुसऱ्या क्रमांकाचा म्हणजे अठरा टक्के होता.

कुशमन ऍण्ड वेकफिल्ड या जागतिक स्तरावरील संस्थेने याबाबत पाहणी केली असून दिल्ली, अहमदाबाद, बंगळुरू, मुंबई यांसारख्या महानगरांमध्ये अशा प्रकल्पाची संख्या गेल्या वर्षीच्या तुलनेत घटली असल्याचे त्यात आढळून आले. देशामध्ये 166 नवीन गृहप्रकल्प गेल्या तिमाहीत सुरू झाले असले तरीही परवडणाऱ्या घरांच्या प्रकल्पात मागील वर्षीच्या (जुलै- सप्टेंबर 2013) तुलनेत यंदा 52 टक्‍क्‍यांनी घट झाल्याचे या पाहणी अहवालात नमूद केले आहे.

कुशमन ऍण्ड वेकफिल्ड ही जागतिक स्तरावर बांधकाम क्षेत्रात सल्लागार म्हणून काम करणारी संस्था आहे. या संस्थेतर्फे भारतातील आठ शहरांमध्ये जुलै- सप्टेंबर या तिमाहीत नव्याने बांधण्यात येणाऱ्या गृहप्रकल्पांची पाहणी करण्यात आली. या शहरांमध्ये यंदाच्या तिमाहीत 166 गृहप्रकल्प हाती घेतल्याचे दिसून आले. चेन्नईमध्ये सर्वाधिक 45 प्रकल्प तर अहमदाबादमध्ये सर्वांत कमी म्हणजे पाच प्रकल्पांची पायाभरणी यंदा झाली. या अहवालानुसार, देशातील या शहरांमध्ये मागील वर्षी (जुलै- सप्टें 2013) 43 हजार 800 सदनिकांचे प्रकल्प हाती घेतले होते. त्या तुलनेत यंदा 34 हजार 600 सदनिकांचे प्रकल्प उभारण्यात येत आहेत. यंदा 400 लक्‍झरीस्‌ सदनिकांचे प्रकल्प देशात उभारले जात आहेत. परवडणाऱ्या घरांची संख्या 9 हजार 800 वरुन 4 हजार 700 म्हणजेच 52 टक्‍क्‍यांनी घसरली आहे.

Govt to develop dry port in Pimpri Chinchwad

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Govt-to-develop-dry-port-in-Pimpri-Chinchwad/articleshow/45008645.cms

Govt to develop dry port in Pimpri Chinchwad

PUNE: The Centre will develop a dry port in Pimpri Chinchwad to enable export, Nitin Gadkari, Union minister for road transport and highways, said on Saturday.

Gadkari was speaking after inaugurating the Institute of Driving Training and Research, developed by Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) and Tata Motors on a public-private partnership basis.

The minister said the roads and ports in the country are congested and there was a need to develop inland transport. "Inland transport forms 20% of the total traffic in China, while it is only 0.5% in India. If tourism is to be promoted, there is need to develop inland transport," he said.

Gadkari said the CIRT must set up a centre here wherein research can be conducted in transport, automobiles, pollution control norms and other aspects meeting international standards. "We will provide all the funds needed for setting it up. Small models of the driving training institute should be set up in villages on a public-private partnership basis to train drivers and reduce accidents," he said.

The Union government will also encourage state governments to develop bus ports on public-private partnership basis to give facilities similar to those at airports to passengers. Hotels, restaurants, malls and other facilities at these bus ports will also generate employment, he said adding that the Union government will also give subsidy for gap funding to make them viable.

Gadkari said the Centre has prepared a draft suggesting changes in the Motor Vehicles Act 1988 and will make efforts to get it passed in the Parliament in the winter session. He said that negligence by drivers was responsible for the maximum number of road accidents, but there is also a need to improve roads and give proper training to drivers to reduce accidents.

The country will need around 4.7 crore skilled drivers by 2020. These drivers can also get jobs abroad, he added. Sent from my iPad

Reserves ! Savings

http://www.arthayantra.com/latest-blogs/item/379-three-out-of-four-indians-would-go-bankrupt.html
Three out of four indians would go bankrupt

Mr. Horace Mann said ‘There is nothing as costly as ignorance’. We follow an age old habit of ignoring the consequences of an emergency in our life. The practice of maintaining emergency fund is not in the highest priority list amongst the most of the professionals. ArthaYantra conducted a research on 2000+ working professionals across various cities of India covering various age demographics, some alarming results came out which expose the preparedness of these professionals to meet an emergency in their life. An emergency is the risk caused due to death/disability, risk of health or loss of job.

Entry Level Professionals

When it comes to preparedness for an emergency, Entry Level professional fared surprisingly low. As high as 85.6% of professionals do not have enough savings for emergencies or have inadequate liquid reserves.

The entry level professional are generally those who have less than 6 years of working experience, mostly single with less financial burden. But considering the future aspects, it is very important for them to start having adequate reserves.

Mid - Level Professionals

The midlevel professionals are categorized as young family with mortgages to pay and some immediate financial requirement. This category ideally should have a sufficient reserves as the cash requirement are short term and immediate. But they fall short when it comes to preparedness for emergencies. Research shows that 61.60% percent do not have proper surplus to meet any future contingencies.

Although the numbers as compared to the entry level professionals are slightly better, but looking at their future burden of responsibilities, they are the most vulnerable to such emergencies. It would be prudent for this group of professionals to proactively start building an emergency corpus to face any adverse situation in life.

Senior Level Professionals

When it comes to even higher level professional the picture doesn’t look good at all. Alarmingly, 70.83% of senior level professional do not have proper buffer for emergencies.

Consider middle age families with young kids in a situation where the sole breadwinner dies due to accident or loses the job or one of the family members get seriously ill. In such circumstances, they would be forced to either sell their assets like jewelry or even their homes. Personal loans, hand loans and credit cards start playing their role in addling on to their debts and hence disturbing their financial life completely.

Planning for future financial goals should never be done at the cost of ignorance of planning for an uncertain future event. One needs to make sure that the amount spent for securing such a risk is not treated as an unnecessary expense. Just like planning for retirement, planning for an uncertain job loss by setting aside a multiple of the monthly expenses is also very important. It would ensure the lifestyle remains unchanged even when the situation gets tough.

In personal finance there are three risks which are required to be covered.

Risk of death/disability

For a family where the earning member either dies or suffers disability which results in the loss of income, a proper insurance coverage against such situation would ensure adequate support to the dependents. The insurance coverage should only be in the form of a pure term plan or personal accident insurance policy.

Risk of health

With the change in lifestyle and increase in hospital expenses, one has to ensure that proper health insurance coverage is taken. This would cover the expenses in case of illness of any family member. Although there is coverage provided by the employer in some cases, this coverage is always not adequate. Hence one should not rely only on the coverage provided by the employer but also buy some coverage on their own to ensure the entire risk is adequately covered.

Risk of Job Loss/Major expenses

Planning for this kind of emergencies is the most ignored aspect of personal finance. Proper liquidity has to be maintained throughout so that any possibility of personal/hand loans and credit card usage is minimized. The ideal amount to be kept aside should be 3 to 6 months of monthly expenses.

Conclusion:

Before determining future financial aspirations, the savings for an emergency should be considered as the highest priority objective. Although there are other options that can be used in such contingencies like personal loans, hand loans, etc. but they would finally end up as a liability and hence will cause serious dents in surplus levels. Ignoring the savings for emergency can even cost future goals impacting the entire personal finance of the individual. It would be good to start saving with a disciplined approach to face any emergencies in life.

The Difference Between Real Estate Investment and Speculation

http://www.realtyplusmag.com/rpnewsletter/fullstory.asp?news_id=25988&cat_id=1
Property Pulse - the Realty Plus Newsletter

The Difference Between Real Estate Investment and Speculation
Arvind Jain,
Managing Director - Pride Group

In financial circles, the terms real estate investors and real estate speculators are used to refer to people who are buying property to make a profit, rather than for personal use. Though the two terms are often used interchangeably, they are not exactly the same. Nevertheless, even veteran financial specialists tend to get mixed up between the two.

In order to understand the difference between the real estate investor and the speculator, it is necessary to have a look at their methods of operation. A speculator predicts (or attempts to predict) the future return on any investment, and tends to be focused on short-term profits. He or she is often not very well informed on how the asset class of real estate works in a particular locality. Since speculators are usually also active in other investment segments such as stocks, bonds and bullion, they tend to use the same approach for all asset classes. The general approach is to buy low and sell high in a very short period of time.

A real estate investor, on the other hand, makes a careful analysis of the current market position, market trends and related affecting factors so as to make an informed and forward-looking investment decision. Investors are not looking at short-term profitability, which is in any case not a viable objective to operate from in Indian real estate. While investors also tend to invest into other asset classes, they do not do so without fully understanding them.

The next question about the difference between speculators and investors would pertain to the returns they get. While a speculator may make a lot of money if he makes an accurate guess, all such returns are short lived. If the real estate market is facing a short-term decline, the speculator stands to lose all his money because he is also investing only for the short term. A related facet of real estate speculation is that it is, for the above reasons, not suitable for rental income generation.

An investors, however, is looking at healthy, steady returns on capital appreciation and rental income. For this reason, he maintains a reasonable investment horizon which is tailored to the market dynamics of this particular asset class. This is important because Indian real estate is subject to cyclical ups and downs. A property cycle is dictated by various factors related to population growth, GDP, policy framework and sentiment, and boom and slump periods are more or less a given. Indian property investors aim to ride through the predictable ups and downs of this cycle. To do so they must remain invested for a period of at least 5-7 years.

Another reason why a longer investment horizon is important is that most investors look at buying properties at a lower rate at new locations in anticipation of the demand to come. For this to bear fruit, they must give these locations sufficient time to receive basic infrastructure and spillover demand from adjoining areas.

Long-term investments made by property investors provide stable and reliable returns. Investors are not prone to losing their money due to a receding market, because they have made a more careful analysis of the market condition and are willing to wait till their expected results are delivered as per the market data before they make their move.

As Robert Kiyosaki puts it ‘Real estate investing, even on a very small scale, remains a tried and true means of building an individual’s cash flow and wealth.’ Also, real estate is by far the ultimate asset since it not only grows in value but also performs as a rental income generator. But it must always be approached from an investor's perspective rather than from speculative objectives.

Realty demand looking up: Credai

http://wap.business-standard.com/article/companies/realty-demand-looking-up-credai-114082101416_1.html
Realty demand looking up: Credai

The Confederation of Real Estate Developers of India (Credai) said the property market across the metros in the country was looking up and it expects good absorption in residential property in the next 6-9 months.

"In my communication with some of the builders in the south, I was told the demand scenario has picked up in the last few months. Demand in the metros in the last 3-4 months was also encouraging, when compared with the same period last year," said C Shekar Reddy, national president of Credai.

According to him, the RBI's recent move to lend support to the affordable category by allowing banks to raise exposure through priority sector lending was a positive step for the realty sector.

He said the Rs 4,000-crore allocation to the National Housing Bank in the Budget for affordable housing would help developers leverage funds at a lower cost.

Reddy, however, said regulatory issues related to acquiring no-objection certificates (NOCs) and environmental certificates, and absence of single window system were impacting the developer community at large.

"To plug the shortfall of 80 million homes in the country regulatory issues have to be simplified as more and more developers were seeing themselves at a disadvantage to build homes for economically weaker sections," said Reddy.

Is it right time to take a home loan and a property?

Is it right time to take a home loan and a property?

New Delhi: Because of the on-going economic uncertainties, many aspiring home owners in Pune are still hesitant about taking a home loan and buying a residence. One of the questions that people, who seek to make this beautiful city their permanent home, ask is does it makes more sense to rent now and await a price correction.

For those who are thinking of renting a home in Pune, there are many aspects to consider. In the first place, the affordability of both rental and purchased property is highly location and project specific. To illustrate – someone in Pune who can afford to buy a home in Undri may not even be able to afford the rentals at Boat Club Road, Koregaon Park or Kalyaninagar.

Secondly, whether it makes more sense to rent rather than buy a property would also depend on one's future plans in a particular locality. Does one wish to settle down there, or is also open to other areas? It definitely makes sense to rent a home while someone is deciding upon a particular locality.

If an individual is certain of a locality in Pune and is committed to settling down there, the right time to buy a home is now. There are many projects available in the excellent new residential areas that have come up in Pune, and prices are still competitive. There will not be a correction in real estate prices in Pune, as demand for a movement of residential properties in the city is healthy.

The wait-and-watch policy is only valid if there are informed reasons for anticipating a correction in a certain locality. On the whole, property rates in Pune will either remain stable or appreciate, depending on the area. Also, there are no prospects of home loan interest rates rationalizing over the mid-term, and economic indicators suggest that inflation will continue to drive up costs.

Given that it is the right time to avail of a home loan and purchase a property in Pune, one still needs to consider the financial implications. As a thumb rule, an individual's home loan EMI should not exceed a rational percentage of his or her net monthly disposable income. Generally, EMIs can amount to 50 per cent of monthly income.

However, home loans are not the only cause of debt in the contemporary context. People take out personal loans and have pre-existing debts, too. In other words, even a 'fair' EMI percentage could prove unaffordable. The 'ideal' EMI component can only be calculated vis-à-vis a debt-free person's salary. This would be between Rs. 1000-1200 per lakh.

People availing of home loans sometimes forget that they are under legal obligation to repay. There are numerous cases where borrowers have neglected to undertake a due diligence with regards to their financial capabilities and the suitability of the loan of which they have availed. As a result, they find themselves in debt traps and sometimes default on their repayments. Borrowers should stretch themselves only to the extent that they realistically foresee their financial position improving in a given time frame.

No home loan strategy should ever be based on anticipated financial windfalls as a means to pay off the loan. It should be based on realistic factors such as reasonable salary hikes and maturing of insurance policies and investments. If one anticipates a salary hike, even if this amounts to only a certain annual increase, one can consider a 'step-up' option for the existing home loan. Here, the borrower pays a lower EMI initially and steps up the repayment of the home loan in proportion to the assumed percentage increase in income.

(Kishore Pate is CMD of Amit Enterprises Housing Ltd.)