C Shivakumar
Chennai:
Could a decent affordable home be possible at a cost of
Rs five lakh in urban India?
“Yes”, says Faisal E Kottikallan, chairman of KEF
Holdings, who is investing Rs 650 crore in Tamil Nadu to set up an industrial
park in Krishnagiri.
“We will be building a Rs 5 lakh prototype of affordable
home at Krishnagiri plant,” says Kottikalan, whose company already has bagged a
project to develop government schools in Kerala.
Interestingly, this prototype of affordable home at
Krishnagiri is expected to be opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi possibly
during the month of December.
“We have invited the Prime Minister to inaugurate the project
while he was in Dubai and he has expressed his keenness,” Kottikalan told
Express on the sidelines of Global Investors Meet here on Thursday.
Interestingly, Kottikalan has already briefed the Prime Minister about his
project when he visited Dubai recently.
“We will be setting up the world’s largest integrated
facility for offsite construction in Krishnagiri. The investment of Rs 650
crore would be in two phases in the
State and will provide employment opportunities to over 1,000 people,” he says.
Interestingly, affordable housing has been a major issue
in the metropolitan cities. Most of them are priced above Rs 20 lakh and
Kottikalan hopes that his plant at Krishnagiri would bring in a revolution in
providing affordable homes in India.
Talking about the plant, Sreekanth Sreenivasan, head
business development, said that the plant will apply principles of industrial
manufacturing to construction and incorporate robotic systems and computer aided
design and manufacturing - which eliminates wastage while reducing time and
costs significantly. The quality produced in offsite construction is much
higher than traditional in-situ construction,” he says.
“We could have a eight-storied affordable homes ready
within six months,” he says.
He says that the Phase-1 will be rolled out with
immediate effect. KEF Holdings will invest Rs 390 crore and offer employment to
more than 500 people. This will be followed by the second phase in January 2016
with a further investment of Rs 260 crore and employment to an additional
number of 500 individuals, he says.
Kottikallan says that if the project is successful, he is
planning to replicate the model across India by planning three more factories.
According to a report ‘Decoding housing for all by 2022’,
India needs to develop about 11 crore housing units with an investment of more
than $2 trillion annually
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