The suicide of Vikas Singhal, 42, a reputed builder and developer of Raglan Infrastructures Limited, on April 29, has become a symbol of bad times the real estate builders and developers are facing in Punjab today.

The once booming real estate market in the state that attracted national and international builders like the Dubai-based Emmar, DLF, Ansals and Parasavnath has slowly turned into their graveyards. Between 2003 and 2005, the real estate prices doubled and at some places like Zirakpur, Dera Bassi in Mohali district near Chandigarh the prices almost tripled. The slowdown that started in early 2006 continued this year as well with both the builders and buyers waiting for the new government to take charge. The final blow to the real estate market came in March this year with cancellation of the No Objection Certificates (NOCs) given to 32 projects, and annulment of Change of Land Use (CLUs) to six mega projects. The reason given was that these projects were violating the environment norms as they were located too close to industrial areas.

The builders who were already struggling in a sluggish market suddenly found no takers for their investments that ran into hundreds of crore rupees. The worst hit were local builders like Singhal. The NOCs issued to his two housing projects in Dera Bassi industrial area — Gulmohar City and Gulmohar City Extension — were revoked. According to sources, Singhal had made an investment of around Rs 300 crore in these projects and most of it was financed by loans from financial institutions, which remain unpaid. More than 1,000 flats were still to be sold off in the Gulmohar City Extension. This coupled with a price fall of almost 40 per cent of land prices in Dera Bassi is believed to have led Singhal to take such a step.

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