Manesar, the industrial hub in Haryana that houses several automobile factories including one from Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, is often clubbed with its glitzy neighbour Gurgaon when developers want to hardsell property. But, try finding a house at Manesar, and, unlike in Gurgaon, there’s nowhere you can shift into right away. That, some say, may have contributed to the recent unrest at the Maruti Manesar factory, as workers are under stress for travelling long distances everyday in the absence of proper housing in the vicinity.
Residential units are either in the planning stage or are under construction in what is considered one of the biggest automobile hubs of India. Although commercial realty is growing, in the name of housing, there are only 500-odd units by Haryana State Industrial Development Corp (HSIIDC), and these, too, are for the employees of the organisation. In addition, there are some company guest houses around. The demand is huge: There are around 200,000 workers across the industrial belt of Gurgaon-Manesar, of which around 40,000 work at Manesar.
In about three to four years, houses would start coming up in Manesar, say analysts. But the numbers are still few—just about 40,000 residential units are expected in the Gurgaon-Manesar belt in the next four years, according to Sanjay Sharma, managing director, Qubrex, a real estate advisory. Just in Manesar, around 2,500 units could be supplied in the next two years. The demand could be for as much as 500,000 to 600,000 houses by then, projections show.
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But that’s only half the story. Even when residential units come up, these are likely to be beyond the reach of the blue-collar workers. The apartments being constructed could be priced at an average of Rs 50 lakh to Rs 60 lakh with an equated monthly instalment (EMI) of as much as Rs 50,000-60,000, analysts said.
It’s a chicken-and-egg situation, pointed out Anshuman Magazine, chairman and managing director (South Asia), CB Richard Ellis, while talking about whether housing should come before an industry is allowed to be set up. Citing examples of older industrial hubs like Jamshedpur, Durgapur and Modinagar, Magazine said they were able to have own housing inside the plant for managers and supervisors. In most cases, workers came from far-flung areas even then, he added.
In terms of real estate activity, there are two DLF residential projects under construction in Manesar, and one each from Anant Raj Industries and the ABW group also. DLF is building about 800-1,000 units for the two projects in Manesar. DLF’s Express Greens was initially priced at Rs 2,350 per sq ft and the resale price is pegged at Rs 3,500-4,000 per sq ft.
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Then there are about 8 to 10 builders with the SEZ land in the vicinity. The groups active in commercial realty in the region are Bharti, Vigneshwara, Rahejas, Eros and Uppals.
Amit Sarin, managing director, Anant Raj Industries, told Business Standard, his Manesar project was launched at Rs 3,200 per sq ft, which now stands at Rs 4,000-4,500 per sq ft. He said that with more IT coming up in Manesar, “we will see a replication of Gurgaon in four to five years.” A DLF executive called the quality of infrastructure in Manesar “very contemporary” and said the connectivity to the Delhi Jaipur Highway made the area attractive. “We see the scope of Walk to Work concept here”, he added.
However, analysts referred to pockets in Tamil Nadu, Pune, Gujarat and Ahmedabad as some of the recent examples of planned industrial hubs, but there’s a question mark on workers’ housing there as well. “I agree that housing is very important, but companies may find it difficult to provide it in industrial hubs because of high land prices,” CBRE’s Magazine said. However, he agreed that in the developed world, proper housing and transportation were a prerequisite, say in a place like Detroit, US, one of the largest auto hubs of the world.
Offering affordable housing is the biggest challenge, experts said. While Manesar is much cheaper than Gurgaon—the commercial rental in Manesar is half of that in Gurgaon—it’s still out of bounds for workers.
According to Manish Aggarwal, executive director (investment services), Cushman and Wakefield, when some of the projects were launched more than three years ago in Manesar, the units were priced at around Rs 1,900 to Rs 2,200 per sq ft, and now the value has skyrocketed to Rs 4,500 to 5,000 sq ft. “It was not affordable for workers three years ago, and it is not even now,” he explained. As for the HSIIDC plots sold as affordable units, close to the industrial hub of Manesar, the launch price was Rs 1,800 to 1,900 per sq ft a few years ago, and the rates have risen to Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,500 per sq ft now.
Talking of rental housing, there isn’t any.The contract workers take up accommodation in the nearby villages. Workers get shared accommodation with rents of about Rs 4,000 a month.
The Haryana government had in 1994 conceived a 4,000-acre industrial model township (IMT) in Manesar.
HSIIDC records show at least 2,100 plots have been allotted to various industries here till date. Recently, HSIIDC concluded the first phase of the labour housing project in industrial model township of Manesar.
Following the latest workers’ unrest, Maruti said it had identified land at Daruhera and Pataudi for a low-cost housing project similar to the scheme offered to the workers at the Gurgaon factory.