Not all is lost for state in smart city list

Lucknow

After a debacle in the top 20 Smart Cities list released by the Centre on January 28, Lucknow Municipal Corporation seems to have not lost all and hopes for Lucknow to be soon added in the list. The state capital fell short of few numbers and achieved 29th rank in the survey.

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The Union Ministry of Urban Development has announced to soon release a list of 10 more cities to be taken up from states which could not find a single rank in top 20. The list is expected to come out by February end and Lucknow stands a good chance to appear.

Mayor Dinesh Sharma said, "Lucknow would certainly appear in top 30. We have heard that a special round of competition would be held among states which could not make it to top 20 and 10 top cities will be selected among them. We are keeping fingers crossed for Lucknow."

Notably, Agra too is very close by at 31st rank, followed by Kanpur and Aligarh from UP in decreasing order of scores. Varanasi has been among worse performers in the ranking.

Source - TOI 

Mumbai 2nd in top global rentals list

A Knight Frank Global Cities report placed Mumbai at second spot among top 20 global cities, which offers the highest rental yields for office space. The city currently offers a 10% return annually on office space rent, said the survey released on October 15.

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Mumbai is ranked number two among 20 global cities for the highest office rental growth. "Knight Frank forecasts that Madrid will top rental growth at 22.2% by 2018, followed closely by Mumbai (21.3%) and San Francisco (20.2%),'' it said.

Bengaluru is on the top of the list while Delhi is ranked third on top global cities in office rental yields. An office space in Bengaluru fetches an annual 10.50% return to the owner while in Delhi the yearly return is 9.50%.

In comparison, London and New York that offer rental yields at 4%. As much as 67% of total investment in India's real estate, mainly driven by commercial market, is from overseas investors, it said.

Current office rentals in Mumbai and Delhi are lower than the 2007 peak levels by 17% and 19% respectively; Bengaluru holds forte with an 8 percent growth.

While London and San Francisco witnessed the highest rental growth for high-rise offices (skyscrapers), Mumbai has also shown a healthy traction in high-rise rentals.

Said Shishir Baijal, Chairman & MD, Knight Frank India, "Indian office market has has clocked office space transactions of 18 million sq ft in the first six months of 2015. We expect the year to complete at around 40 million sq ft which is the highest since 2011."

Bengaluru itself is expected to transact office space to the tune of around 12 million sq ft this year. "Even though at an aggregate level, the vacancy is at 17 % the challenge is to get good quality office spaces across prime business districts, wherein vacancy is in single digits. Due to a robust demand from start-ups and e-commerce, other than IT/ITeS, BFSI and manufacturing, office rentals are experiencing a substantial surge,'' said Baijal.

Samantak Das, Chief Economist & National Director of Research, Knight Frank India said, "While Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi are offering the highest yields globally of 9-11% , we see a lot of interest from investors in the last one year, which was preceded by a period of prolonged slowdown. Office markets across the top cities of India are continuing with its turnaround trend observed in 2014. This is backed by robust economic growth and focus on infrastructure and ease of doing business.''

Source - TOI