Some of the country's largest listed real estate developers - DLF, Prestige Estates, and Puravankara - are foraying into the Rs 50,000-crore residential property market of Mumbai, where home prices are among the highest in the world. All of them are set to launch residential projects in the financial capital of the country, where the market is dominated by players such as Runwal, Lodha, and Oberoi Realty, among others. Leading the race is Prestige, which has lined up 6 million square feet (msf) of new launches in the city across Mulund and Byculla in the third quarter of this financial year (2021-22).
For Paris-headquartered IT services major Capgemini, India has always been the backbone of its services delivery for its global clients, but the company is focused on driving more value from India as it gears up its engineering research and development (R&D) presence worldwide with its acquisition of Altran Technologies. The company, which has about 149,000 employees in India, is looking to hire 60,000 associates this year. Of them, 30,000 will be recruits from campuses and the rest lateral entrants. For Ashwin Yardi, chief executive officer India, Capgemini, the focus is to make sure that the India unit is aligned with the global plans of repositioning the company as a hub of engineering R&D, operational technology, and IT.
One of Mumbai's biggest real estate redevelopment projects of Bombay Development Directorate's (BDD's) chawls (large buildings divided into many separate tenements, offering cheap, basic accommodation) has taken off in Central Mumbai, opening up a Rs 20,000-crore opportunity for real estate companies. It is expected to drive down real estate prices in Central Mumbai by up to 25 per cent, forecast real estate experts. Spread over 92 acres in Central Mumbai's prime localities of Worli, Lower Parel, and Dadar and consisting 195 four-storey houses, the BDD chawls were constructed in the 1920s.
Radhakishan S Damani, investor and promoter of the D-Mart supermarket chain, has broken into the elite club of the top 100 global billionaires. Damani, who grew up in a single-room apartment in Mumbai, is now ranked 98th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with $19.2 billion as his net worth. The index is a daily ranking of the world's richest people. The other Indians on the top 100 rich list ahead of Damani are Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, and Lakshmi Mittal.
Leading property developers, such as Oberoi Realty, Tata Realty and Infrastructure, and Hiranandani, have turned to redevelopment of existing buildings in the expensive parts of Mumbai as a way of augmenting revenue. Experts estimate that Mumbai's redevelopment projects could be worth Rs 30,000 crore. As such, they are not new. What is new is that the big developers are interested in them. Leading the race is Oberoi Realty, which has set up a separate team for these projects.
BigBasket co-founder Abhinay Choudhari has exited the company, and in his next entrepreneurial journey, he is looking to "solve another equally painful chore for many Indian households" after grocery shopping. The Tata group acquired a majority stake in the online grocery store in May. And when the deal happened, Choudhari decided he won't continue to be part of the management team.
Mumbai, India's financial capital, is set for a mega transformation with a massive patch of land opening up for redevelopment; a new metro railway ready to start services by the year-end; and the country's oldest railway station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, going for modernisation with private sector participation. Work on Mumbai's second airport will start from next month, while construction of the sea link connecting central Mumbai to Navi Mumbai has already moved into a fast lane despite Covid-induced lockdowns. Also, a coastal road project, connecting Nariman Point to Worli, is under way and will help decongest the city to quite an extent. Of all these mega infrastructure projects, the one that has a huge potential to change the city's skyline is the Eastern Waterfront project - to be built on the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) land.
While Wipro leads the pack on absolute numbers, analysts for Infosys for reporting consistent growth, revising FY22 guidance and beating TCS on revenue growth.
MahaRERA, the authority under Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, in Maharashtra, has blacklisted 644 housing projects in the state for not meeting project deadlines. The authority has prohibited them from being sold, advertised or marketed in the state. These projects were supposed to be completed and handed over to homebuyers in 2017 and 2018. Even though most of the projects are being developed by local developers, one big name on the list is Lavasa Corporation promoted by HCC whose registration expired in 2017.
'India is still a small market but whatever we do, we do it with full focus.'
US tech giant Microsoft is in the final stages of talks with the Telangana government to set up a data centre with a total investment of Rs 15,000 crore. According to sources in the state government, the company has zeroed in on a land parcel near Hyderabad for the facility. "In the information technology (IT) space, Telangana is already seeing some major investments. "Microsoft is establishing its data centre here, and it may come out with a public announcement soon," said a source.
The Indian IT services sector is scrambling to retain talent since digitisation-led transformation has increased the demand for a digitally skilled workforce. As a result, the pull for jobs for tech professionals is also coming from non-IT sectors, leading to higher attrition among IT companies. The average number of tech jobs from non-IT sectors has seen a 41 per cent uptick in March-May'21 versus March-May'19, according to data from Naukri.com.
Tata Motors recently cut the sales forecast of its luxury car brand, JLR, due to chip shortages, scaling down its production numbers from the earlier 120,000 units to 60,000-65,000 units by September, and leading to an almost 10 per cent fall in the company's stock. In May this year, Bosch India, too, had stated that chip shortfalls would impact its production, as supply chains were getting disrupted.
A seasonally-strong quarter, with no immediate impact of the second wave and continued acceleration of digital transformation will allow the IT services sector to report a robust Q1 this financial year. However, key metrics to look out for will be attrition rate and margin lever as they will be impacted by salary hikes. Analysts expect growth for the quarter to be broad-based, with sectors like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), retail, manufacturing, hi-tech and life sciences driving revenue growth. Analysts across brokerage houses are pegging revenue growth in the range of 1.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent.
Nasper-backed fintech firm PayU has started talks to acquire domestic payment gateway major BillDesk, and the deal size could be in the range of $3-4 billion, sources in the know said. "BillDesk has been open to being acquired for some time now, but in the past the valuations that the company was seeking proved to be a hurdle," said a source. "Three years ago too, PayU had approached BillDesk for an acquisition, but things didn't go ahead due to high valuations. "BillDesk had asked for $2-billion value then," said the source.
The key demand drivers -- such as low home loan rates and income tax sops, particularly for affordable housing -- that supported the recovery in H2 FY2021, remain in place and will spur recovery again, feel experts.
Since home-delivered meals from five-stars are cheaper by 15 to 20 per cent as compared to eating at the destination outside, food delivery has emerged as an important part of every restaurant's service portfolio.
Mumbai recorded a 4x growth in property registrations on a yearly basis in June this year, as restrictions imposed by the state government ended. Mumbai and its suburbs recorded property registrations of 7,857 units in June, compared to 1,839 units registered in June 2020. The registrations for June were also 39 per cent higher, compared to the same month in the pre-pandemic period of June 2019, said a new report by Knight Frank India.
While there was a sharp drop in footfalls in malls in H1FY21, there was reasonable recovery in H2. However, the second wave derailed the recovery.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances