Puravankara to invest Rs 500-1,000 cr in Kerala

The Bangalore headquartered Puravankara Projects Ltd, a leading real estate company which operates in mid and luxury segment, is aiming to go aggressive in the affordable housing segment in the country and is looking at investing between rs 500 crore to rs 1000 crore in Kerala in all the segments in the next two years, a top official said.

The focus area of the affordable housing segment would be the Tier II and Tier III cities.

Provident Housing Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Puravankara, caters to the affordable budget housing segment targetting middle class and first time home buyers and already has two projects in chennai and bangalore, Jackbastian Kaitan Nazarath, CEO of the group told reporters here.

Their plan is to focus on South India in the first phase and to spread in other regions in phase 2.

"We are in acquisition mode in the affordable housing segment in kerala. Hopefully, we will have the first acquistion completed very soon," he said.

The group is aiming to make its presence in 33 cities in the next 5 years.

Puravankara has completed the high end 'Purva Oceana' its first project in kerala at kochi, which is being marketed after the construction is over. Spread over 1.24 the 12 storeyied building, with 96 units, the project is located on the pictuersque Marine Drive waterfront area having three bedrooms apartments ranging from 2367 to 3278 square feet.

It has so far compelted 33 residential and commercial projects and has 19 ongoing residential projects, he said. Till date, 6500 homes have been handed over to the end users.

The group began operations in Mumbai and has established its presence in Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Mysore and overseasin Dubai and Colombo.

Puravankara is also the first to obtain FDI in the Indian real estate industry through its joint venture with Singapore based Keppel Corporation Ltd and it has ongoing housing projects in two cities in India.

He said 2010-11 would be consolidating year for the group.

In colombo, the group has purchsed lands and the lankan government has invited the group to build apartments for affordable segments.

The group was also getting into road and bridges segment besides looking at buidling few hospitals.

On the future projects in kerala, he said they have one more project at Marine Drive and two at nearby Kakkanad.