AA II from across seven seas !

First off, let me apologize to the readers of SaveNewTown for being out of action for nearly 2 months now. I have been tied down with a lot that has been going on my personal front. Hence have been AWOL.

Also I have been travelling, and out of the country on assignment since the first week of April. Today Saturday, 7th May; I decided to sit down and write a few words and update my readers.

As I sit down and write this piece in a far away cafe in a far away land of USA. I miss being in cacophony that is Calcutta, the wide open spaces of New Town. I have three more weeks to go before I return to base camp.

Now that the elections are behind us, we hope the HIDCO authorities can get down to the business of development and the much missed infrastructure in New Town, better known in some circles as Ghost Town. The election results would be out soon and we shall know which way the dice has rolled. Left or right, red or green – let us hope it settles the burning issue of land acquisition in the state.

Let us also hope who ever assumes power keeps everyone’s interests in mind and sets aside political partisanship and for once decides in public interest. Let better sense prevail, let justice be done, let responsible development happen. Let the landowners get their due and let us move on in life. Wishful thinking you say ? Hope is all I have people.

In the last few months, I had received many requests to tour AA II with specific focus towards individual plots and report on the goings on and the state of the union.

Before I sailed out west, I visited AA II, around the second week of March and that is what I am reporting on today. To some who have been up and about in the last few weeks, some information presented here may seem stale. So please skip this if you are already in the know.

  

The projects that line up this stretch of AA II opposite Lake Nucifera are Hiland Woods, Sunrise Symphony, Peerless Anahita Bengal Shelter’s Teen Kanya, Bengal DCL’s Malancha and Sunny Fort to name some.

Lake Nucifera

This area is far from being habitable yet. No wonder, the builders are offering many a bait, starting from lower rates, semi furnished, air conditioned units with wooden floored bed rooms. All this and more to shore up the hard to convince consumer.

Having visited Hiland Woods earlier, I decided to give it a miss and stopped by Sunrise Symphony instead. As expected was greeted by a smooth talking salesman who saw nothing wrong in the lack of infrastructure in the area and reassured that as soon as these projects start handing over the units to their respective owners, infrastructure will follow suit. What came before I ask - chicken or the egg ?

Above is a leaf out of the sales brochure of Sunrise Symphony. Here in they claim, that you will be at one with nature. Who needs infrastructure if you have such postcard beauty on offer.

The sales representative @ Symphony also confirmed that Lake Nucifera is destined to be beautified and maintained by Bengal Ambuja folks, who apparently have the contract bid for it. No one seems to know what is the time frame for it. It seemed a secret a little too well kept.

Below are some pictures of the model flat at Sunrise Symphony, where I was told about 70% of flats have been sold. And I better hurry, if I want something half-decent. I decided to hold on to the buying decision, for the moment at least :)

 

Just outside Sunrise Symphony and by the shore of Lake Nucifera stood an abandoned bright yellow truck, whose purpose was not clear, not to me at least. Apart from the fact, that it was owned by the state government.

 

Hate to say that the next door, Peerless Anahita and  Bengal Shelter Teen Kanya cut a sorry figure. They seem to be in perennial state of construction. There seems to be hardly any thing different to report on these projects. My sympathies with people who have booked units in either of these.

Next in line was Bengal DCL’s Malancha. Now this project has been embroiled in controversy for some time now. It was launched with much fan fare back in 2007 I believe. With punch lines as - “A home from Bengal DCL is like Beethoven giving music lessons to your daughter. Living in Malancha Condoville is like Albert Einstein tutoring physics to your son”. Many moons later, I am sure this line will wake up Beethoven in his grave and force Einstein to curdle in his slumber.

I have nothing against, how people look. Very early on in life I was told to “Never judge a book by it’s cover, or judge people by how they look”. But then again, there is always that exception to the rule. Case in point being the picture below. I am sorry to say that this group photo does not instill any confidence in me as a buyer, and far from the order of Beethoven or Einstein.

 Bengal DCL – Board of directors

Nothing against any one personally, but Malancha too has gone south for the most part. It is in it’s fifth year of construction, grossly delayed now by nearly 2 years. And far from offering any compensation for the delay; on the contrary they have recently sent notices to the flat owners asking them for even more money above and beyond the original price. Also asking them to take possession of their apartments without basic utilities like electricity and water.  Their alibi – rising cost of building materials. Such are the ways of this world.

You can read more and subscribe to this facebook group for more details – Malancha, New Town, Rajarhat.

Notwithstanding the unscrupulous intentions of Bengal DCL, I still stopped by Bengal DCL and exercised my democratic right of shooting some pictures.

   

    

Below are some pictures of the Sunny Fort project. There wasn’t much time left on this day to get into the details of this project.

 

This was the Action Area II story. I am afraid, I was not able to cover the individual plots on this visit. But there is always a next time and I promise upon my return to the homeland, I will deliver on doing a dedicated piece on individual plots across New Town.

On the way back, there were some more things that caught my fancy .

Above is a stark and grim reality of New Town, amidst all the glitz and glamour of HIG towers, corporate business parks, and fancy apartment complexes lie piles of garbage and trash littered all over.

There is is construction debris, house hold refuse, and all kinds of garbage. The sad part is, it does not seem to bother any one. There are no garbage pick up service in any part of New Town, to the best of my knowledge. And this is a world class township. May God bless New Town !

Finally, below are some pictures of Shrachi developed Synthesis Business Park.

 

Below are some candid shots of some unusual visitors, on their inspection route of SBP. Good omen, may be ?

 

Uniworld City, Revisited

My previous post on Unitech was titled Any Given Sunday! It was about 11 weeks ago,  in the second week of December 2010.Things seem to have taken a turn for the better, since.

This time I was accompanied by a neighbor of nearly 6 years. I had not known for as long that we shared the interest in New Town. For the purpose of this post, I will refer to him as T. His initial.

We drove down on a languid Sunday morning, making some stops on the way. We finally reached Uniworld City around noon. T was to be my passport to enter the secured environs of this city of what will be 68 larger than life towers, including Unitech Air – a cluster of 40 storied towers.

*You can see what looks like sewer spots along the side of the road

From a distance the skyline did not look like it had changed much at all. But a closer look did tell a slightly different story.

Following changes were noticed :

• The sewerage work seems to have taken off after being stalled for over a year.
• The approach road in front of Uniworld City is finally under construction.
• There seems to be more and more families who have come to live in at Uniworld City.
• And there are more who are in the process of moving in.
• Even though I do not have the official number, but about 20 families would be a fair estimate. Some times I can be dumb, or may be these are just tell tale signs of aging. It occurred to me later that I could have checked with the security guards on duty, to have a more accurate number.  
• We spotted moving trucks during our visit, that tells me people are continuing to move in.
• Some basic stores (grocery, pharmacy and beauty salons) have already come up with in this settlement.
• All, encouraging signs these.

This almost looks like a shot from Lagaan, the movie !

 Road work in progress

Daily needs store and a pharmacy

Purple Blaze – the beauty salon 

People moving in, in bright yellow moving trucks !

 Aerial shot of the children’s play area

Tennis Court * Sorry, for the bad quality of this picture, taken from inside the car

 Towering Tower

We took a driving tour of the Unitech campus and captured it on video. Have a look.

Below are some more pictures that were taken of the unit we inspected and Uniworld City in general.

  They have provided for wooden flooring in both the bedrooms of this two bed room apartment

Walk in closet area just outside the bathroom attached with the master BR

Views from the 10th floor 

  Entrance Arches

Following are some more pictures of the road that goes further down from Uniworld City. This road is to be at some point connecting to the E.M. By pass; near the Science City rotary or so I am told. Work seems to be going on at brisk pace.

This picture was taken about 3 km down the road from Uniworld City.

The buildings in the horizon are those of the Uniworld towers.  T confirmed that electricity, water (boring water), intercom service have all been provided to the flat owners, who have been handed over their units.

There was a lot more information that I would have liked to dig up and serve up here. We only had a couple of hours to spare this Sunday. So we had to leave them out for another day.

Hope you find this information useful. Should you have specific questions about Uniworld City or any other project in the vicinity. Please drop me an email at : savenewtown@gmail.com and I shall do my best.

And yes, just to clarify my stand. This is just a voluntary service, I do not work for Unitech or any of it’s group companies and have no vested interest in providing this information. Information is provided as is without any guarantees either :)

To Action Area III in third gear !

It has been over a month now since the Bailey bridge connecting the rest of township to Action Area III collapsed. There is no news of replacing it with a new bridge yet. Instead what has come up is this signage.

 

So, as suggested we took the Bagjola Canal expressway to get to AA III – which has some of the shining stars of New Town – the much talked about and well advertised, the Keppel Magus venture Garden Elita Vista, Shapoorji Pallonji Mass Housing - Shukhobrishti, and the DLF project.

Check out this video for the ride to AA III, in third gear !

In my previous post, I have made it clear, how I have been enamored by the precise execution of the SP project. My stand feels vindicated, as nearly a dozen families have already moved in despite poor infrastructure in the area, bad roads, no daily need stores and even not very many neighbors.

In talking to a SP personnel, they confirmed that electricity has been brought to the LIG section of the housing, via underground cabling. There has been and still is stiff opposition in erecting power poles for overhead distribution of power. Also underground water is being bored for distributing to the residents. However lately some projects have been promised water to be supplied to the New Town area. Boring water tends to be prone to contamination, in addition to disturb the ecological balance of an area.

In the name of public transport there are some stray and rickety auto-rickshaws which run sporadic services to the area.

I accompanied a friend who has invested in the MIG section of the SP project. We were able to take a driving tour of the MIG site and also took a tour of the model apartment.

Just across the street, is Garden Elita Vista – A Keppel Magus venture, promising us Singapore in New Town.

Keppel Magus

Singapore in New Town

We walked inside the glass gates at the Elita Vista site, and met up with one of their executives Sourish. He identified us instantly from our many previous and frequent visits. He had his reasons to cast his doubt about our purpose of these visits. We had to tell him about the this blog the social cause we were serving. It helps me make me feel good about myself :)

We sat down and talked with Sourish and got his take on what he thinks of Action Area III and the infrastructural issues plaguing it. He confirmed that the electricity is being brought in with the aid of underground cabling. And HIDCO has okayed the developers to dig the ground for water. We agreed that the politics was damning the development and progress of New Town. He was not sure, if much would change post-elections either. If a new government is sworn in.

He liked the idea of this blog and asked me who do I intend to save it from ? Pat came the reply. From our political masters, who are using this as a tug of war. And even HIDCO, given their lackadaisical pace of work. Sourish came up with a good one – he said, ‘One can’t save a baby from it’s mother’. The inference being – New Town is the baby and HIDCO and our political masters being joint-mothers !

He was able to give us some stats. Only about 105 flats out of about 680 flats are all that are remaining. As per him, about 97% of the units have been purchased by end-users. He also added that phase 1 was to be handed over in October this year. Seeing the progress, it certainly seems doable.

 Workers laying down underground electrical cables

The big cable spool !

To conclude, it does look like AA – III is gearing up for prime time. If the infrastructural activity keeps up the pace, along with the developers handing over the apartment to it’s rightful owners. Winds of change may be blowing in the direction it needs to. Let us at least hope so.