Firms target luxury housing in Agra

Multi-crore projects expected to add another 800-900 housing units in the city

After offering numerous housing solutions for the middle-class of Agra, real estate companies active in the city have begun targeting the luxury housing segment in this town though urban planners have raised doubts at the sudden construction boom in a town that's devoid of major industries.

On Saturday, two Delhi-based real estate companies, HRC Horizons and Ganpati Builders, launched multi-crore luxury housing projects in Agra, expected to add another 800-900 housing units in the city at prices Rs 9-40 lakh.

Launching the Rs 60 crore Park Side Villa project, Piyush Singhania, director, HRC Horizons, said the company had developed a completely hi-tech housing project spread in 40,000 square metres, providing independent villas and multistory apartment buildings costing upto Rs. 40 lacs, all interconnected through a computerized intranet, providing services like broadband internet, telephony and cable television through an integrated data pipeline.

He said that besides construction, the HRC group was involved in advertising, media and pharmacology and this project had been designed specifically according to the requirements of the changing times.

In yet another inaugural of a housing project, Delhi based Ganpati Builders announced the successful launching of its first housing project Emerald Heights at Shastripuram in Agra, beginning a series of housing projects at various locations in the town, which is expected to cost Rs. 100 crores.

But with the launching of a large number of housing projects, the urban planners in the town have raised serious doubts on the utility of such a large number of high-priced apartments being constructed in a town where the average middle-class families were still running on a shoestring and unemployment ran deep into its roots without any major industries to talk about.

Officials at the Agra development authority claimed that the construction of these high-priced apartments in the town had been the primary reason for the rates of property and building materials reaching unprecedented peaks, making the middle-class's construction of a dream home merely a dream.