REAL ESTATE MANGALORE

With realty in Mangalore city witnessing rapid growth over the past few years, pressure on the roads is mounting. The city planners have now realised the need for upgrading the existing road infrastructure and establishing new ones wherever necessary.

While the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) has been implementing road infrastructure development projects within the city limits with the Rs 100-crore grant given by the Karnataka Government, the revised Master Plan of Mangalore Urban Development Authority proposes the construction of a ring road and expanding the roads within the city.

The widening and concreting of the roads, which began in 2008, are going on in full swing in most parts of the city.

As the project focuses on road infrastructure development within the city, most properties in the residential and commercial segments will benefit from this.

RING ROAD

Highlighting the need for better roads for the growth of the city, Mr P. M. A. Razak, President of the Kanara Builders' Association, told Business Line that commercial property will witness more growth due to the widening and concreting of roads.

He said the revised Master Plan of Mangalore has marked the roads as per their hierarchy and each of them will be widened accordingly.

The Master Plan has suggested the construction of a 36-km-long ring road from Kotekar in the south of Mangalore to Surathkal in the north. According to the Master Plan, the 45-metre-wide road will pass through the villages of Deralakatte, Belma, Amblamogaru, Adyar, Neermarga, Tiruvail, Moodshedde, Padushedde, Marakada, Kenjar, Thokur, Bala and Idya.

It is to be noted that some of the major residential and commercial projects are planned in some of these villages.

Deralakatte, for instance, is emerging as the education hub with a host of professional colleges having their presence there. Also, some prominent developers of Mangalore have already started residential projects there.

A ring road would give a boost to the establishment of integrated townships in these villages. This apart, a road project — Mangala Chorniche — running parallel to the Nethravathi and Gurupur rivers has been proposed in the Master Plan.

Mr Razak said that the concept of TDR (transferable developmental rights), which has been proposed in the Master Plan, will facilitate faster road widening as it would be an incentive for the landowners to surrender the required land for road widening.

Transferable rights

However, the willingness of the landowners to part with the land will depend on the compensation in terms of adequate TDR and guarantee to repurchase the TDR by the City Corporation, he said.

The TDR allotted now is inadequate to compensate landowners for the loss of land. Currently the TDR is 1.5 times of the land surrendered for the roads. This needs to be increased to at least three times immediately, he said.

Though the revised Master Plan has several provisions for infrastructure development such as road widening, ring roads, etc., the critical factor will be availability of funds and execution of works by the local bodies.

Mr Razak said that the local authorities have to strike a balance in generation of funds from taxation revenues, development fees, and loans/ grants.

The execution of infrastructure project is the key for the success of the revised Master Plan, he added.