The Hindu Business Line : Now, homes with helipads!

Amid the booming realty, the reality of traffic snarls, even at airports, will no longer bother the high-flying elite of India Inc. For, the new townships being planned in more than a dozen Tier II and III cities will offer helipads. Business honchos will have to come with their own choppers, of course. The Ahmedabad-based EsVee Group, promoted by Mr Vijay Kumar Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of the Rs 1,300-crore Gujarat Ambuja Exports Ltd (GAEL), plans to invest nearly Rs 2,000 crore in the next five years to develop such exclusive townships across India. “All these townships will be identical, with the same designs, and developed by the same architect and planner, the Singapore-based Jurong International,” Mr Gupta told Business Line in Ahmedabad.

The first township off the block will be at Mysore, famed for its annual Dussehra pageant.

Currently, the company offers plots varying from 2,400 to 10,000 sq.ft and will soon make available flats and villas. It will have all amenities pre-laid and in place — roads, water, electricity and broadband connection, among others. The Rs 180-crore project is scheduled to be completed by 2010.

It has an interesting location — a 60-acre plot on a hillock overlooking the airport and with a view of the famous Chamundeshwari Temple on a nearby hillock. The township, ‘Highlands’, will offer 250 residential flats of three to five bedrooms with a price-tag of Rs 60 to 90 lakh, and 150 villas — all fully furnished and air-conditioned. Highlands is the first infrastructure development project undertaken by the EsVee Group. Its joint promoter is the Bangalore-based Ishya Group.

Apart from its own helipad, Highlands will offer its residents a spa, multiple swimming pools, coffee shops and health club-cum-fitness centre. It will also have controlled access, library, mini-theatre, Jacuzzi and sauna, an amphitheatre, a club — and an artificial lake.

Similar townships are being planned for Siliguri, Agra, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Hubli, Cochin, Coimbatore, Mangalore, Nashik, Pune, Vadodara and Rajkot. With an initial outlay of Rs 2,000 crore, the company — Esveegee Realty Gujarat Pvt Ltd — will invest around Rs 160-170 crore on an average on each township.

The Mysore project will cost Rs 180 crore, including about Rs 40 crore from private equity for which talks are in progress, according to Mr Gupta. Jurong International has designed over 1,000 projects of township and real-estate in 37 countries.

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