Few takers for 25,034 DDA 'matchbox' flats

Launched with much fanfare, the mega 2014 Housing Scheme of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) boasted of a never-before bonanza of 25,034 flats on offer. Yet today this ambitious scheme is staring at the bottom of the proverbial barrel, inundated with a flood of cancellations.

About six months ago, over 25,000 'lucky' allottees were announced the winners of their 'dream' homes, a dream which has since quickly turned sour, with about 6,000 of these 'lucky' winners having already surrendered their homes (the highest ever in DDA history) and many more queuing up to follow suit.

According to some estimates, the number of cancellations in this scheme alone is likely to exceed the total number of flats surrendered in the 2006, 2008 and 2010 housing schemes combined.

At the bottom of this never-seen-before deluge of cancellations are the tiny, match-box sized 1BHK flats (between 350-450 sq ft) that have been allotted to each of the winners and their location in far-flung areas like Narela and Rohini, which are known to lack even basic amenities like educational institutions and healthcare facilities.

As if this wasn't enough, the DDA in its wisdom opted for a uniform registration fee of INR One lakh for all categories of homes put on sale, with the compact 1BHKs making up for almost 90 percent of the quota. This in turn resulted in people rushing to pay the booking amount at DDA offices with few bothering to actually inspect the houses before applying.

Having learnt its lesson the hard way, an embarrassed DDA has now resolved that its 2016 Housing Scheme will now focus mainly on Low Income Group (LIG) housing, with each unit having a minimum area of 600 sq ft.


...only 12 out of 100 Delhi malls doing well

Akin to DDA's housing scheme, there appear to be few takers for the capital's glitzy shopping malls as well with barely 12 out of the estimated 100 operational malls, running successfully, according to real estate advisory firm, JLL India.

With nearly a 100 malls operating in the Delhi-NCR, the region is known as the Mall capital of India. This is by far the highest concentration of operational malls found in any Indian city, even as the seven major metros of India -- Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad -- account for a total of 255 operational malls.

While the numbers stack up impressively, it's the business aspect that presents a major concern. According to Pankaj Renjhen, JLL India MD (Retail Services), a large majority of shopping malls in the capital are not doing well with only about a dozen running successfully. In contrast, Mumbai has about 45 malls, of which approx 10-15 are rated as good performing malls.

The high rate of failure notwithstanding, Renjhen reiterated that the Delhi-NCR region still remained the best placed among all the other cities to host successful, large format shopping malls. According to him, inspite of the tough competition from other shopping malls and high-street stores the region had witnessed the closure of only four malls in the recent past while one opted for a conversion into office space.

Renjhen further explained that the success ratio of malls hinged on several key factors like their design and layout, brand positioning, location attributes and more importantly their overall efficiency in catering to the customised needs of their target segments. Further they also had to evolve into family destinations rather than just remain shopping destinations he added.

According to JLL, deploying professional tenant management teams had made a huge difference to some of the region's most successful malls. These teams were responsible for all the key decisions involved in a mall's operations like, deciding on the brand mix, store placement, branding and promotions, mall design and layout and customer contact programmes/events held in house.

A select list of some of   the most   successful malls in the Delhi-NCR region namely Select City Walk, Ambience Mall, DLF Malls (in Saket and Vasantkunj), Pacific Mall and MGF Metropolitan Mall in Gurgaon, have employed professional tenant management teams.