Despite pandemic, more houses were built in 2021

Despite the devastating second wave, builders were able to complete the construction of 70,490 houses in the MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) in 2021

Mumbai Despite the devastating second wave, builders were able to complete the construction of 70,490 houses in the MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) in 2021.

MMR, which covers the area of Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Raigad, is considered one of the prime and costliest real estate markets in India (HT PHOTO)

In 2020, during the first wave, they could construct 54,720 houses.

MMR, which covers the area of Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Raigad, is considered one of the prime and costliest real estate markets in India.

The data has been compiled by Anarock, a real estate consultancy firm. Anuj Puri, chairman of Anarock Group, said that faster completion makes more business sense in the existing reality market. “Many homebuyers now prefer ready to move apartments instead of booking in an under-construction project. It makes business sense to complete the projects and sell the apartments,” said Puri. “In addition, the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRera) has been very strict with regards to the deadline. Hence, we are seeing builders going the extra mile to complete their projects,” he added.

Commenting on the report, the Maharashtra Chambers of Housing Industry (MCHI-CREDAI), the leading association of builders said that the whole focus of the builders is to deliver houses to the homebuyers. “Our delivery timelines are already hit by the pandemic and hence, our entire focus now is on execution and completion of our existing projects,” said Boman Irani, President, MCHI-CREDAI.

Irani, who is the chairman and managing director of Rustomjee Group, reasons the 2021 high numbers on the premise that builders were quite prepared to handle the second wave. “We had the experience of the first wave where our work was fully shut for a few months. Though there were restrictions in the second wave, we could handle it comparatively better,” he added.

In the second wave, the main condition was that builders needed to make arrangements for residing the workers at their respective sites as transportation was prohibited.

Currently, there are 4,26,000 units under construction in various stages across the MMR region.

After the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, 2000, work was stalled for almost two and half months. The Maharashtra government allowed the construction activity to restart from June 8, 2020, onwards. But a majority of the sites remained unattended due to a shortage of workers. About 7,00,000 of the 9,00,000 on-site real estate workforce had returned to their hometowns after Mumbai emerged as the country’s worst-affected Covid hot spot in the first wave.