Parsvnath to build footwear institute

Parsvnath Developers Ltd (PDL), one of the country's leading real estate developers with projects spanning across key verticals of the real estate industry, is set to foray into building educational structures as well.

The company has recently signed a letter of intent (LoI) with the Ministry of Commerce for a project in Uttar Pradesh.

The project involves developing a Footwear Design and Development Institute at Rae Bareli in UP, which is also the constituency of Member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi. This project will envisage an investment of over Rs 47.07 crore.

"This is our maiden project in building an educational institute. The project involves developing a footwear park with state-of-the-art facilities," said Pradeep Jain, chairman, Parsvnath Developers Ltd, while talking to Business Standard.

Setting up the footwear design institute will facilitate specialised business and employment opportunities for aspirants from the region. The project will be completed in a year and be the first of its kind in the district.

Talking about the role that the developer may play once the construction is completed, Jain said that PDL would have no role at all after this.

"Our role is limited to building the infrastructure. Once we are done with it, we will pass it over to the authorities concerned," he said.

The institute is expected to come up on the lines of the one at Noida, the leading institute in India for infrastructure development for the footwear industry and human resource development.

Talking about its present township in the Lucknow, Jain informed that the project is in progress and is expected to seek an investment of about Rs. 150-200 crores.

Parsvnath Developers have a total of 22 residential projects in line in Uttar Pradesh out of which six projects are successfully completed and handed over.

For the records, DPL has pan-India presence across 48 cities and 17 states of the country. It now has 191 million square feet (msf) of developable area including 6 SEZs with developable area of 56.96 msf.

The company has already commenced work on 76 msf and expects that construction work on remaining would start in the current fiscal. The number of on going projects stands at 111 across verticals.