Palava City, the integrated smart city being developed by the Lodha group, is set to complete the phase one project by December as it plans to commence works on the development of phase two spread over 900 acres.

Shaishav Dharia, Development Director of Lodha Group, said, “The phase one of the project, which has thus far seen total investment of Rs 6,000 crore (about $1 billion) is expected to completed by December this year. The phase one spread over 250 acres with over 19,000 houses would be fully completed. This is part of the 4,500-acre Palava City project taken up by the Group.”

Speaking to Business Line on the sidelines of an event hosted here on Smart Cities, Dharia said the second phase would be completed over the next 10 years and will have more than 60,000 housing units and about 5 million sq.ft of commercial space. It is programmed for investments to go up Rs 25,000 crore.

“We have been rated amongst three smart cities which have come up and in Palava City more than 5,000 families have been already living and experiencing a smart city environment supported by technology solutions provided by IBM, GE among others. The land acquired by the Lodha group in late 1990 is one of the biggest such projects in the country and close to a metropolitan city and proposed new international airport,” he explained.

Mentioning about the Modi Government push to the smart city projects, he felt that over the next year or so, various elements and modalities for smart city projects would come together, which would enable integrated development of new cities. But the biggest issue is to get a land of this size at one place to develop a smart city, he felt.

With the smart city concept and discussions around it gathering pace, he felt that a project like that of Palava City could potentially serve as a template for other projects.

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