Builders are all set to launch again with labour coming back
BENGALURU: A relative improvement in the labour situation has been seen. It has made the property developers go ahead with their planned launches, albeit cautiously. During the peak lockdown period, Labour presence across construction sites fell to about 20% in major cities. This has happened as thousands moved back to their home towns and villages, majorly in the eastern part of the country. But now labour has started returning and the numbers have touched about 60% of the pre-lockdown ones.
Prestige Estates, who had put all its launches on hold after the pandemic broke, is again planning to start seven residential projects across South India in the second and third quarters. They are expecting this will help get more than Rs 1,000 crore of gross bookings in the second quarter of this fiscal. CMD Irfan Razack in a conference call with analysts said “Sales numbers in the second quarter will be more than double of the previous quarter,”.
Ozone Group vice-chairman Srinivasan Gopalan has also said “We have not killed any launches,” “Labourers are slowly coming back; it is about 65% (of pre-lockdown) in Bengaluru, 45% in Chennai and between 30% and 50% in Mumbai. We are launching a plotted development in Bengaluru and a senior care facility in Chennai next month,” he added.
In addition to that Brigade Group is also planning to launch 2 million sqft of residential projects in Hyderabad and some in Bengaluru and Chennai, but said it will keep an eye on the demand before going ahead. “Currently we are planning but we will watch the market,” said Brigade’s residential business CEO Rajendra Joshi.
