Government has to source water for us

Your major projects in India? We plan 4-6 Royal Garden Cities (rgc), with total live/work/play environments for 300,000-500,000. rgc s will be completely web-enabled, a world-class, self-contained city with state-of-the-art infrastructure. We are already working on one near Bangalore.

What about basic infrastructure?

Our cities would be standalone eco-friendly cities, which would not require municipalities. They will have their own captive power plants, water and sewage treatment plants. But yes, water supply is an issue for which we need state government help. It will have to source water for us.

Problems being faced?

We have been working since 1999 with the Indian government to create a legal system that allows FDI in real estate. Though the Centre has finally issued guidelines, state governments are yet to adopt and implement it. Our projects cannot take off till state governments do not put their act together. On paper they talk of single window clearance; in reality we take 3-4 years to get clearance for a project. Litigations due to land acquisition are also common, with no help from the state. Bureaucracy and corruption abounds in the real estate sector, at present a non-performing sector. For instance, in Europe and the us , over 50 per cent of annual gdp comes from the real estate industry, but in India it is less than 3-4 per cent. Frustrated, foreign investors prefer investing elsewhere, like China.