Sahara India on Thursday unveiled an ambitious housing scheme that envisages building 675,000 houses in 202 cities at an estimated cost of Rs 83,000 crore (Rs 830 billion).
Sahara Chairman Subrata Roy told reporters in Mumbai that the scheme was the biggest of its kind in the world.
"The townships, to come up in 202 cities in the next 5-7 years, will have more than 675,000 houses and are targeted at the low and middle income group," Roy said.
He said the houses could be purchased for Rs 450,000 per unit upwards.
The entire project, Roy said, would be funded through "internal accruals" and advance payments. There were no plans for an equity participation, he added.
"We have acquired land in about 100 cities and about Rs 14,000 crore (Rs 140 billion) have been received as advance from the buyers," Roy said, adding that about 16 such townships would come up in Maharashtra and 39 in Uttar Pradesh.
He said the townships, which would be spread over 18,575 acres of land with built-up area of 6.88 crore square metre, would have schools, community and recreational centres, broadband Internet connectivity, digital communication network and petrol filling stations.
The project would address all basic requirements of a self-sufficient township while additional efforts have been put in to include top of the line international facilities and services, he said.
The company was also developing a global destination project, which would be spread over 26,000 sq km of water area in the delta of Sundarbans in West Bengal.
Apart from building facilities for accommodation, shopping malls, theatres and restaurants, the company would also construct a casino, the permission for which had been granted by the Government of West Bengal, he said.
Sahara is planning to construct multiplexes near the townships with a total of 800 screens all over the country, Roy said, adding a film screened at one place would be relayed to all the multiplexes through fibre optics.
"An exclusive sea beach of five km along with tourism attraction like river cruises, water sports, wildlife and adventure tourism would ensure that the project is a grand global destination," Roy said.
