DLF's monopoly on the wane, but still a land kingpin

DLF still holds the first mover advantage in the region with its large land bank

Between 1981 and 1990, DLF got around 57 project licences against an overall 101, which is about 56 per cent of the total. In the same period, Ansal Properties, another prime player in this market, held 32 project licences in Gurgaon.

Switch to 2012, and things are quite different. DLF was issued just 8 of the 73 licences for Gurgaon in 2012. In 2011 too, the number was low for the country’s largest realty player—when it was issued 6 licences by Town and Country Planning, Haryana, out of the total of 84 for Gurgaon. Another prominent player in Gurgaon, Unitech, was issued 4 licences from 1980-90, and it got one in 2012 and two in 2011 in the region, according to data available with analysts.


 

Year	1981-1990	1991-2000	2001-03	2011	2012
DLF	57	24	12	6	8
Ansal	32	12	2	2	2
Unitech	4	12	3	2	1
Bestech	0	0	0	5	6
Emaar-MGF	0	0	0	2	3
Chintels	0	0	0	3	1
Aakarshan	0	0	0	0	3
Juventus Estate	0	0	0	1	2
TOTAL	101	109	33	84	73

Sanjay Sharma, managing director, Qubrex, a real estate consultancy, said that in DLF City, Gurgaon, the realtor had about 3000 acres of land, while other developers owned much less. “In New Gurgaon, it has about 4000 acres of land, as per the company’s presentation a few years back”, he said. According to analysts, the other developers are nowhere close to DLF when it comes to land banks in Gurgaon.

“Developers have taken into account the potential of the Gurgaon market after seeing the massive escalation of property prices of DLF’s projects here”, said an industry executive. Take for instance, DLF Aralias, which is much in news in connection with the alleged DLF-Robert Vadra nexus. Aralias was launched way back in 2002-03 at Rs 1800 per sq ft, and it has seen a 15-fold jump in value, to Rs 30,000 sq ft now.
Around 1,500 to 2,000 luxury apartments and villas were added to the Gurgaon market in the past one year itself, according to an estimate by IndiaHomes. However, Sharma of Qubrex said the price of DLF’s apartment is equivalent to 10 apartments by any other player. “DLF leads in terms of sales value”, said Sharma.

Samarjit Singh, MD, IndiaHomes, said that DLF has been going slow on new launches in the region due to the cash crunch that it is facing. “The licences are valid only up to three or four years. Therefore, DLF is waiting for the market conditions to improve”.

In August 2011, Competition Commission of India (CCI) imposed a penalty of Rs 630 crore on DLF for ‘abusing its dominant position’ in the Gurgaon market in the case of two its projects—Belaire and Park Place. In March this year, CCI gave out a similar order for DLF’s Magnolia project, but did not impose any additional penalty.  DLF had contested it in Competition Appellate Tribunal (Compat), saying that several realtors had dominated the Gurgaon realty sector through the years.