Sankalpa - Purposeful Unity

First of all I apologize to the readers of this blog for going amiss for the last two weeks. My work and some personal commitments had the better of me. But I am now back in action and you will hear more from me about other projects in New Town.

Now then, I would start off by borrowing a line from Swami Vivekananda's Chicago address:

Dear Brothers and Sisters of Sankalpa,

Time has come that we get together in the interest of the investment we have made in Sankalpa. As we know that there are four sites within the project - Site I, II, III and IV. Site I has barely taken off and was launched the last, so that might be outside our scope of present discussion.

Regarding Site II, III, IV - I have been following up on the construction progress closely, have been posting pictures and videos on a fairly regular basis. My last visit to Sankalpa was about 2 weeks back. I will be visiting the site at least every 4 weeks and hope to see reasonable progress during that time frame, since my last visit.

However we need to form a forum of flat owners at Sankalpa (across all the sites) and get together, so that we can take up various agenda with the developers. A reader of this blog, and a flat owner himself - Cdr. Ghatak seconds this opinion and suggests that it would be good start if at least some of us (let's pick a number, say 6 of us) who are locally based out of Calcutta can form a group, and meet in person and discuss issues concerning us.

A collective and purposeful unity will give us leverage with the developers. It is obvious that the possession of apartments, will be seemingly delayed. One such item on our agenda could be to make sure that the penalty clause be exercised, and we are financially compensated for the delay. In my previous casual meetings with the chief engineer I was told that the penalty clause, will most definitely be adhered to. We need to see that it actually is.

As allottees to this project, and future owners of our individual apartments - there could be a number of things that concern us, which need to be flagged, raised and discussed at this stage.

At this point I will humbly request all the readers of this blog, who are either themselves investors at Sankalpa or know someone who is, to simply drop in an email to : savenewtown@gmail.com, with a subject line of - "Sankalpa Flat Owners Forum". Please introduce yourselves in the email, with your contact information and preferred mode of communication: Mobile, Email, etc.

You are welcome to send us an email, even if you are not residing in Calcutta. However at this point we are looking for people who are located in Calcutta, so that we can meet in person.

Sankalpa - A view from the top

Site III & Site IV - Towers

Yesterday, we (myself and a co-blogger - who wishes to remain anonymous). For ease of reference we will call him Z.

So upon some insistence from Z and a desire to see the view from the top, we climbed all the way to the 13th floor of Tower 8, Site II of Sankalpa and boy was I not glad I did. It looks like a completely different world from up there.

It wasn't a particularly breezy day, but there was a pleasant breeze cutting across in the south easterly direction.


Tower 8 in Site II is a G+13 structure, the top 2 floors are pent houses with liberal floor plans for the people who can afford it. The pent houses feature wide balconies ideal for small open air BBQ parties. I realize I really need to befriend at least one of the people who own one or more of these pent houses. And if you are reading this blog and happen to own one of these pent houses, go on show me some love for providing you with the lovely pictures and the video !

Tower 8 in Site III was the focus of my visit to Sankalpa this time. It seems to be well on track. I will be visiting Sankalpa office today to find out what is their delivery schedule on Site II, Site III and Site IV. Will share the information as soon as I have it.

You may also visit the official website for Sankalp.

With that being said, I will let you enjoy the pictures in 2 different slide shows !

And here is the video ...








And now the walk through of Flat Type A in Tower 8, Site II

A thank you note

First of all I would like to thank the readers of this blog. I will need your help and support to spread the word around, so that we can build a community around this. I hope that you are finding the coverage of New Town projects useful. In the coming weeks and months, I would like to continue to provide complete coverage of most residential and commercial projects on a rotational basis.

I also thank you all for voting on the poll - "Which New Town project would you want me to cover in greater details". The poll received about 34 votes with Uniworld City, Rosedale NRI, and Sankalpa  taking the cake, with Uniworld City being the biggest of these, presumably so got the highest number of votes. That does not mean I am not going to cover the other projects, sure will. However would appreciate your consideration and patience while I get to the project of your choice.  I will also continue to revisit projects to track their progress and share it with the readers of this blog.

We have now set up an email link on the blog - so any comments (especially the good ones:), requests and notes could be sent to me directly. Also please feel free to post comments on the blog posts itself using the Post a comment option

With that being said, I will get back to work of providing more information each day.

Airforce Naval Housing Board (Jalvayu Vihar)

Following a request made by an avid reader of this blog, we visited Jalvayu Vihar in Action Area 1, New Town.

This project is under the purview of Air Force  and Naval Housing Board.

The allottees to this project have to be service men in either the Army or Navy. Both serving and retired personnel  were eligible to buy an apartment in this project @ subsidized rates.

The project seems to be progressing at a decent pace. They have had and are still having their share of problems owing to infrastructural issues.


 These towers sit right next to Greenfield Heights project (one of the first and only project to become inhabitable)

We met and interviewed Commander Nadeem the project director at the project. In many ways he is a frustrated man. Frustrated of incessant delays and the bureaucracy he has had to face dealing with the various government agencies responsible for development in New Town.





At this point his primary concern is that of powering up these apartment homes. He has been knocking the doors of WBSEDCL - West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited and several other allied agencies just to ensure electric supply can be provided at the project. He has been running around from pillar to post, just to have the government officials make empty promises. We all now by know government "babus" talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the talk, there aren't many takers !


We were told that the builders also have to be involved in the process of procuring transformers and related equipment, even though installation and maintenance of these transformers and related power equipment is essentially WBSEDCL's job.  Now then, apparently the officials at WBSEDCL have come to a decision about the specifications of necessary equipment and will be initiating the process to purchase it. Commander Nadeem  is hopeful that the project can be completed by the year end and the handover process can then be initiated, which may be spread over a period of 3 months. However he does add that this deadline hinges on the fact that promises that have been made to him by the government bodies are met promptly.

It is no longer news that several projects, almost all of them are delayed owing to infrastructural issues. Some of these brought upon themselves by inefficient government bodies with ineffective employees with little accountability or even lesser incentive to deliver on time. As if this were not enough the local folks are acting as politically charged ions !  
            
However there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel, as the project director is hopeful of meeting this deadline of year end 2010. He substantiated his estimates with real data - water supply has been arranged for, sewerage lines have been laid, internal finishing work has started. He added that they were doing everything in their capacity and are leaving no stone unturned to deliver the goods !  Let us hope so too.

Now then, here is the walk-through video !

The Swiss have arrived !

These pictures were taken @ Swissotel roof on 8th July, could not get around to upload it until now. Looks like they have done a decent job. Most of these pictures were taken from the roof-top. They are to have a open-air lounge bar and the swimming pool. It was really windy on the roof and the view from the top was quite astounding.

This luxury hotel is sure to drive up the prices of the nearby residential properties like Shrachi's Greenwood Sonata, Bengal DCL's Uttara, and Ujala by Bengal Ambuja.

Enjoy the pictures !

More Shukhobrishti

Cannot stop talking about how good a job the "Shapoorji Pallonji" guys have done. This site just does not look like an LIG complex, the finishing is real professional. I am sure this will be Neighbor's Envy, Owner's Pride.

 Here are some more pictures to prove a case in point ...

Unitech Vistas - Model Flat

Quite a few people replied to poll on this blog; asking for more information on Uniworld City project. So here it is have a blast! Courtesy a dear friend, below are the pictures of a Unitech Vistas model flat, taken just about 2 weeks back. Have a look and comment, please.

* Unitech Vistas is part of 'The Big Picture', and it is what they are promoting at this point. Please note that the model flat is "off-site" and located a couple of kms away from the main construction site for Uniworld City.