With labour coming back, builders are doing launches again – Times of India

BENGALURU: A relative improvement in the labour situation has made some property developers go ahead with their planned launches, albeit cautiously. Labour presence across construction sites fell to about 20% during the peak lockdown period in major cities as thousands moved back to their home towns and villages, mostly in the eastern part of the country. Companies say that many have now started returning and the numbers have touched about 60% of the pre-lockdown ones.
Prestige Estates, which had put all its launches on hold after the pandemic broke, plans to start seven residential projects across south India in the second and third quarter. They hope this will help get more than Rs 1,000 crore of gross bookings in the second quarter of this fiscal. “Sales numbers in the second quarter will definitely be more than double of the previous quarter,” said CMD Irfan Razack in a conference call with analysts.
“We have not killed any launches,” Ozone Group vice chairman Srinivasan Gopalan said. “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 said.
Brigade Group has plans 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 definitely watch the market,” said Brigade’s residential business CEO Rajendra Joshi.
Puravankara says that labour across its sites is at about 70%, compared to 25% during the lockdown.
The company launched three projects in June – two in Bengaluru and one in Pune. Another eight are being lined up. An investment of about Rs 3,000 crore is going into the new projects, said Abhishek Kapoor, chief operating officer of the residential business.
However, total launches this year for top builders will certainly be much lower than last year, which too was not a great year. In the first quarter, just 1,390 units were launched in the top eight cities, as per data from Anarock.
Godrej Properties too is sticking to its target and says it expects to have 100% construction pace in the next few months. “I don’t think it will take more than the next two, three months to get pretty close to normal,” said Pirojsha Godrej, executive chairman. Oberoi Realty is also banking on Diwali to launch projects.
However, realtor Sobha said it would adopt caution going ahead due to the shortage of labour. But it has plans to launch 14 million sqft of space across nine cities. “We are operating at about 60% of our labour force and we are still a few months away from reaching 100%. Adding more projects and not having the labour may not be the right strategy,” said vice chairman JC Sharma.