Accessible, clean and well-connected, Dwarka has now become the ideal residential hub for many.
Since 2006, over 80 new group housing societies have come up in the sub-city of Dwarka. What’s more — about 70 per cent of them are already occupied by families that have migrated to this location from different parts of the capital, even the country. “Dwarka has become a popular residential hub as it is well-connected, safe and has excellent infrastructure,” claims Ravi Verma, a real estate agent in the area. “People from all over the country are moving in. The houses they can afford in Dwarka are bigger and yet available at lower prices in comparison to other parts of Delhi.”
Escalating property rates and rents can bear testimony to Verma’s statement. While the market price for a two bedroom-hall-kitchen (BHK) apartment has gone up from Rs 18 lakh to Rs 90 lakh since 2005, a three BHK that was worth a sum of Rs 30 lakh is valued over a crore today, informs Verma. Rents too, have nearly doubled (from Rs 6,000 a month to Rs 11,000 for a two BHK).
A major incentive for the growing popularity of Dwarka as a destination, is perhaps its connectivity to other parts of Delhi and NCR. With a total of eight stations connecting the sectors of Dwarka to different corners of the capital, the metro is evidently the most popular mode of transport in the area — with a daily ridership of approximately 50,000. Though job opportunities in the area aren’t many, the Metro links Dwarka to the office corridors of Gurgaon and Noida, thus becoming the ideal choice of residence for professionals. “Eighty per cent of the people working in Gurgaon choose Dwarka as their residence as rents are comparatively lower to those of Gurgaon,” believes Verma. With the opening of the Airport Express Line — built and managed by Reliance Infrastructure Ltd — commuters can reach the airport from Dwarka in three minutes.
Prasanna Siddhartha, a lecturer at the School of Aeronautics in Dwarka, lives in a cooperative housing society in the area with her family. Using the Metro to travel to work every day, she is happy with the development that has changed the face of Dwarka in the last five years or so. “The roads are clean and smooth, there is no problem of water or electricity,” she says. “There is a shopping complex in every sector that caters to the needs of the people living in nearby societies.” These shopping centres are home to small retailers like chemists, confectioners and a few others.
Though they could not reveal numbers, the Registrar of Cooperative Societies (RCS) — in charge of monitoring the functioning of these societies — claims that more societies will come up to cater to the rising demand for housing in the city.
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As one of the largest residential clusters in Asia, Dwarka is considered safer than its counterparts in south Delhi such as Vasant Kunj and Defence Colony. “All housing societies hold regular internal meetings to ensure the security in the area is kept up to date. Law & order here is better than in south Delhi,” claims Siddhartha.
For a night-out with friends, however, Dwarka does not have much to offer. With only a handful of impressive malls and hotels to boast of (Pinnacle mall, Wyndham Dwarka and Grill on a Hill), the area does not attract many shoppers and foodies.
“I still prefer south Delhi or Connaught Place for shopping and hanging out,” says Jyoti Pandey, a student living in a rented accommodation in Dwarka. “The only advantage of living in Dwarka is the Metro that takes me everywhere, without spending a bomb on auto-rickshaws,” she explains.
Though not yet a hotspot for shopping or eating out, Dwarka certainly seems to be the choice of many as the new residential destination in the National Capital Region.
