The Lodha Group: Geographically Unsound

Lodha Aqua, Dahisar or Mira Road?

By Ubaid Parkar

The Real Estate Regulatory Bill is doing its rounds, RBI notifications are flying around for transparency but the Lodha Group is unperturbed.

Unflustered by what is happening in the Real Estate circles, the Lodha Group is even unflurried by geographical boundaries and locations.

Lodha Aqua, as per their website and a telephonic conversation with their project enquiry team, confirm that the project is located in Dahisar (E). Albeit the project is widely recognized to be in Mira Road. Just go ahead and ask for the address, a surreptitious tone would read out the address sans the PIN Code. Insist on the PIN code, and the voice at the other end would reassert the conclusion of the conversation, without the requested information. Dahisar has a PIN Code 400068 whereas Mira Road is 401107. A less than subliminal distance of a range of numbers.

How does it benefit then? DB Realty, another well known face in the realty sector, has a project of its own in Mira Road. Residential. It has a range of offers of 1BHK, 2BHK and other amenities and intricacies of their services that’s shall be forgone for the sake of argument. DB Realty has sold a few hundred flats at the rate of Rs 2500 per sq. ft. Lodha Aqua, on the other hand, has a whopping offering of Rs 5506 per sq. ft with twenty seven per cent built up area for a 1017 sq. ft apartment. Numbers fly again. Run the abacus a bit more and heed a consideration to the built up area which means that one would be buying for a little bit in excess of Rs 7500 per sq. ft

An excess of thrice the amount, an inflated figure, in a location that can be best described as a pseudo-Dahisar. A placebo. Other projects in the vicinity are selling at Rs 2200 per sq.ft.

Rohan D’Silva, AVP, Lodha, has this to say, “We are completing the project (Lodha Aqua) in phases and is expected to be completed by 2010.” When asked about the location of the project, he said, “Residential properties don’t look at the PIN code to define it. A complex defines its own address. People can call it Mira Road or whatever they are labeling it as.” When asked the Associate Vice President about the place where the registration of the project was done, an elementary response followed, “I don’t know.” If anyone buys a flat in Lodha Aqua they will have to register their flats in Thane as it falls in Mira Road (Dist. Thane) and also would have to pay their water bills / taxes to Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation.

The land of the aforementioned project bears Old Survey Nos. 107/ 1(P), 107/5, 108/2, 109/1 to 109/7, 109/8(P), 109/ 10 to 14, 109(15)(P), 109/ 16, 109/17(P), 109/18 to 28, now bearing New Survey Nos. 37/1A, 37(P), 37/5, 36/2, 38/1 to 38/7, 38/8A, 38/10 to 38/14, 38/15A, 38/15B, 38/16, 38/17B, 38(P), 38/18 to 38/28 situated at Village Mahajanwadi, Tal. & Dist. Thane, within the limits of Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation and in the Sub-Registration District and Registration District Thane. The land was the property of Simplex Woollen Mills prior to 1978.

Lodha is coming out with an IPO. The Red Herring Prospectus filed for the same by Lodha Developers Limited, obtained from the SEBI website, confirms the location of Lodha Aqua as Mira-Bhayender.

Mr D’Silva even went on to the extent of contradicting the responses given by Lodha’s project enquiry team when he added “Our flats are sold on a Carpet Area basis.” There was also incredulity in his response when he said that he was not aware what a “built-up area” is.

From a comment on a property-based website, “Lodha built that construction in Dahisar and the area is 3rd class. It’s even worse than Mira Road. This implies that Lodha build the construction keeping in view the middle class family…” The area is an island of slum and due to its proximity to the Dahisar check-naka it is a hot bed of pollution, bovine interventions, bad roads and perennial congestion.

Says Ajay Tiwari, Business Head of Better Homes, “The area is not demarcated and builders can capitulate and encash on that. The project in itself is good and so are the amenities. It all depends whether it is the favour of the seller or the buyer. It is the final discretion of the buyer or seller as to what the decision rests at.” Manish Mehta, City Head, Axiom Advisory Services, opined, “It is their marketing ploy when it comes to their decision. You can reach the location from either Dahisar or Mira Road station in more or less the same time. I believe it is a very good property with good amenities. The only negative aspect I see is the Rs 30 toll that one has to pay every time when going through the Check-naka.”

All-in-all, it is indeed a marketing ploy which Lodha has used, eyes closed expecting the general members of the public, in dire need of a house to fulfill their obligations to their terms and conditions. The potential home owner’s options are getting more and more constricted due to these acts and in the end he may have to spend more than what is required to fulfill his basic needs.