BJP leader Smriti Irani on Friday suggested real estate developers to diversify their business and said there is a huge demand for data centres in India.
Addressing a conference organised by Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) here, she said there is a huge demand for data centres in India and around 18 million square feet area will be required over the next 4-5 years for data centres.
Irani, the former Union Minister, also spoke about the growing number of Global Capabilities Centres (GCCs) across major cities in India and beyond.
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Acknowledging the contribution of the Indian real estate sector in economic growth, she asked builders to share their best practices related to construction technologies and sustainable development with urban local bodies.
“I do not think that there is anybody in governance or bureaucracy that can deny CREDAI’s community contribution to India’s GDP,” she said.
The BJP leader was responding to a query about the government’s perception about the real estate sector.
“We have to accept the fact that with that for the nomenclature ‘real estate’ there has been a lot of bad press. There has been a projection in the media as though you are not a community of nation builders, you are a community of profit chasers,” she observed.
Irani said real estate is not only about building tall towers or gated communities for people, either in big cities or emerging cities, but it is also about building capacities for the future data centres and building capacities for attracting more GCCs into the country.
Currently, she said there are 1,600 GCCs in India and close to 1.6 to 2 million people are working in those GCCs.
She said that the number of GCCs are expanding and the data centers have to be complemented by a power grid.
As these GCCs are also spread in Tier II and Tier III cities, Irani said there will be a requirement of building an entire ecosystem around it, including data centres, housing, technology centres, healthcare infrastructure, education facilities and entertainment centres.
“So I believe that there needs to be a new projection of the word real estate,” she said.
“So, why should somebody presume that real estate is only about a gated community or a tall fancy building. Can we reorient how you are looked upon as an industry,” Irani said.
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CREDAI is organising the 6th edition of the New India Summit during March 7-8.
With Tier II and Tier III cities accounting for an increasing share of real estate investments and housing demand, the association through this annual Summit makes efforts to navigate the evolving landscape of real estate in Bharat.
The CREDAI is the apex body of private real estate developers in India.
Established in 1999, CREDAI represents more than 13,000 developers across 230 city chapters in 21 states.