Noida land sale set to fetch Rs 5,000 cr

NEW DELHI: Amidst all the protests and dharnas by the local farmers, the country’s largest land auction in Noida, near Delhi, opened technical bids on Monday.

In the fray are DLF, Unitech and Bangalore-based icity Infrastructure, according to officials in the Noida Authority.

The sale of about 300 acres by the Noida Authority is said to fetch a price ranging between Rs 3,000 crore and Rs 5,000 crore. The reserve price for the Noida auction has been pegged at Rs 788 crore.

“After the technical bids have been evaluated, the price bid of the various participants will be considered and then the qualifier will be selected,” Noida Authority CEO Sanjiv Saran said.

The massive plot up for sale stretches across sectors 96, 97 and 98.Noida Authority has laid down some very stringent conditions for bidding which can be fulfilled by a few big-ticket builders like DLF, Unitech and a couple of others.

According to the conditions laid out, only a company or a consortium with an average turnover of Rs 500 crore in the last three years could participate in the auction.

“I appreciate the stiff eligibility criteria set out because this has put a suitable barrier for the small-time developers which have mushroomed all over the country,” says Pradeep Jain, chairman of Parsvnath Developers.

The eligibility criteria mentioned clearly that none of the builders with foreign tie-ups would be entertained, Jain elaborated. Incidentally, Jain did not go for the bidding race in the last moment because “the feasibility was not workable,” he said.