The next boomtown

gets the low-down on Durgapur and finds that the city is in the throes of a transformation.

Once known only for its steel plant, Durgapur is today in the throes of a transformation. Earlier this week, DLF acquired 95 acres in the heart of this industrial town that was laid out in the '50s by two American architects, Joseph Allen Stein and Benjamin Polk, paying Rs 35 lakh per acre.

DLF will build a township, to come up by 2011, which will have a mix of low-, middle- and high-income group apartments, besides a club, some office and retail space as well as co-operative housing plots and bungalows, at an investment of over Rs 1,000 crore. It's a cross-subsidy model that has been successful elsewhere too, with profits from the HIG segment bankrolling the LIG and MIG segments.

Speaking of the foray into small-town West Bengal and the land's high price, Shalini Wadhwa, spokesperson for DLF, says, "It is a fair price to pay in the heart of the city. Besides, Durgapur has a residual demand for 35,000 units; we will be building only 4,500. Further, Durgapur is getting in the radar of various IT companies, educational institutions and is expected to have substantial demand."

DLF is not the only national realtor to test the waters in Durgapur. There's Shapoorji Pallonji which will be building an 18 lakh sq ft IT office complex in the city, the largest in West Bengal at an investment of Rs 100 crore which, when completed in five years' time, will house 4,000 workers.

Durgapur is one of the emerging tier II cities that retailers, developers and industrialists say will be the real engine of India's growth. Already, the signs of the new economy are there "" Big Bazar was one of the first tenants of Dreamplex, the first modern format retail development to come up here two years ago; 89 cinemas opened a three-screen multiplex here last year; and early this year, Ginger, Indian Hotels' brand of budget hotels, opened its doors to visitors.

In residential space too, Bengal Ambuja's Urvashi, a 122-acre township, has whetted the appetite of Durgapurians for more. And Bengal Shrachi is building Junction, a shopping-cum-entertainment destination designed by Stephen Coates of Singapore-based architecture firm aCTa International.

And it is not just Durgapur. Asansol, 50 km to the west in the same district, Bardhaman, is being seeing similar waves of change. Identified as a "mission city" under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission, a "recreation" centre, Galaxy, developed by Kolkata-based NK realtors and Bengal Srijan, is coming up near the busy Chitra cinema crossing. Plus, there is Shristinagar, another large-scale integrated township, phase II of which will be launched later this year.

According to Naresh Sharma, marketing manager of BSHDL, "There has been a healthy appreciation in prices too. Two years ago, we launched the project at Rs 850 per sq ft "" that has risen to Rs 1,050 now."

There are two good things about the real estate activity "" one, it is happening according to a perspective plan developed by IIT Kharagpur that was unveiled in February this year, and two, it is going hand-in-hand with an upsurge in industrial activity in the area."The Durgapur-Asansol belt has traditionally been an industrial stronghold with steel, heavy engineering, coal and railways dominating. These industries were in a decline for the past two decades, but today there is a revival. We are also trying to change the portfolio of industries, by bringing in IT," says N S Nigam, chief executive officer of the Asansol Durgapur Development Authority (ADDA), which is the planning authority for this area.

A total of 100 acres has been set aside for an IT park (Shapoorji is developing 25 acres of this) and the Software Technology Park of India has already set up an earth station to provide higher bandwidth.

ADDA has also developed industrial estates at Kanyapur near Asansol, Mangalpuri near Ranigunj, Angadpur, and an export promotion industrial park over 148 acres on NH 2 near the Eastern Railway line, and is developing a park in Jamuria over 900 acres.

"Durgapur is placed strategically on the north-south, east-west axis," says Nigam, "and we are trying to make use of this." So, there's a trucking terminal with some retail and entertainment options coming up in Raigunj; Reliance has taken up 77 acres in the area for warehouses and distribution hub.

But the feather in ADDA's cap will be an aerotropolis on 2,000 acres close to Durgapur with passenger, and later cargo, services, for which it will tie-up with WBIDC and Kolkata-based real-estate company, PSIDL. "It's still in the planning stage, but it will change the face of this area," Nigam is confident.