Govt Should Grant Infrastructure Status To Real Estate: JLL India
On 19th January, BW Businessworld along with NewsX held a Pre-Budget 2018 Round Table, with many prominent names from the corporate world and academia participating. In a session on ‘Infrastructure’ moderated by Rishabh Gulati, News Anchor from NewsX, various industry stalwarts from the industry participated in discussing their views before the budget was released.
Anurag Mathur - CEO Project Development Services & Head – Emerging Businesses, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) India said, “The current govt has focused a lot of manufacturing, industrialization, logistics, and transportation. We need a further thrust on the housing sectors especially for the affordable segment in the peripheries of urban support. And that involves waste management, water, power, transportation, etc. I think our municipal corporations need a lot of capital to keep up with the expansion of the housing sector. So it would be great if the govt gives a push to municipal bonds. We need to focus beyond 7 big cities and someway create some counter magnet for these big cities. We need to now have 20 new cities coming in the country. A lot of already available cities just need to be upgraded and become counter models. That will ensure that people migrate only for specialized roles rather than mid-level or low-level jobs. I think the government should give an industry status to real estate.”
Vinit Goenka, Member-Governing council-CRIS, Ministry of Railways, “There are some unprecedented policy reforms that have been done for the last 7-8 years. The push in the right direction will be liberalizing old age policies. Removing the number of permissions will also help in promoting ease of doing business.”
Brij Pahwa, Editorial Specialist, BW Businessworld stated, “There is a lot of good stuff happening for the consumers. Where I want to raise a specific point is that there is a lot of urban infra clogging happening in the cities which needs to open up. What this government has shown that there is a scope for improvement. Although the municipal bodies have to play its role, it really has to come top down rather than bottom up. The slum rehabilitation is also a problem in the urban areas. So this budget has to focus on structural issues as well when it comes to municipal bodies. Coming up with airports, waterway connectivity, and more projects on a PPP model will actually help the government to get on to the job projections. In the services-driven India, more jobs will come from the infrastructure development rather than on just agriculture.”
