City Homes work to commence in Lucknow from November

The construction work for the multi-crore project City Homes, undertaken by Sahara Infrastructure and Housing (SIH), will start next month in Lucknow including four other cities in the country.

City Homes is a chain of high-quality residential townships in 217 cities spread across 21 states and two union territories. The development of City Homes is divided into two phases.

The first phase involves 102 cities including Lucknow, Guwahati, Patna, Bangalore while the second phase comprises 115 cities.

"We will start construction for the City Homes Project in planned phases, month by month; as the construction will start with five cities from next month, another three shall follow in the subsequent month and so on. In the first phase, we are starting from five cities including Lucknow," said Surya Vir Singh, assistant chief manager of Sahara India, while speaking to Business Standard.

SIH proposes to invest over Rs 21,273.11 crore in malls and multiplexes; Rs 14,627.08 crore in hotels; Rs 13,566.57 crore in schools; and Rs 13,087.8 crore in hospitals""all part of the mega townships.

The five towns where the construction will start are Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Indore, Jhansi and Gwalior. These are the tows for which SIH has already acquired Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) certification.

EIA is given by the Ministry of Environment and Forest, which certifies there is no detrimental effect on the surrounding environment because of the advent of any venture.

Other cities under the project are following suit. By March next year, Uttar Pradesh would have seven cities including Lucknow to get EIA certification, explained Singh.

"We started acquiring land in 2-3 tier cities three years back. It was then that people said what was Sahara up to; but now those sites have seen ten times increase in price. This is where planning comes into play," said Singh.

He added SIH had an advantage over other developers because they acquired 100 acres or more land, whereas other developers worked on relatively smaller land size.

"City Homes is a well-planned project. We cater to all problems that may arise while living in these homes," said Singh.

"Security may be the major concern of people living in Bihar while electricity is what the residents in UP may be more concerned for," he added.