DLF bags 351 acres of land in Gurgaon

DLF Ltd, India's top listed realty firm, has won a deal to develop 350.7 acres of prime real estate at Gurgaon in Haryana. In fact, the company has emerged as the only qualified bidder after two others, Unitech and Bharti Realty, were disqualified on technical grounds by the Haryana Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation.

Confirming the development, Rajiv Arora, managing director of Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corp, told Dow Jones Newswires, "DLF bid at Rs12,000 per sq m against the reserve price of Rs11,978 per sq m." The total value of the deal is estimated at Rs1,750 crore.

The project is located at Wazirabad village on Gurgaon-Faridabad road. It involves acquisition of agricultural land for commercial, residential, and leisure purposes, including an 18-hole golf course. Although Gurgaon is technically located in the state of Haryana, it is generally regarded as an extended suburb of Delhi.

If the deal goes through, it would be the largest single land deal in the country so far.

On the disqualification of Bharti and Unitech, Arora said, "One of the lead partners in case of Bharti Realty could not meet the financial conditions. In case of Unitech, it did not have the experience of managing an 18-hole golf course for 10 years. Though it has developed one at Manesar, it still does not have the occupation certificate.''

However, The Economic Times quoted unnamed sources to say that Unitech had quoted Rs1950 crore and Bharti Realty Rs2,500 crore for the project, raising speculation that the Delhi-based DLF – which has several ongoing projects in the area – may have been unduly favoured.