Only 10% of Govt AIF Funds Disbursed for Stressed Realty Projects

Though a government-backed alternate investment fund (AIF) has sanctioned as much as Rs 10,284 crore to help complete 101 stuck housing projects, only a fraction of the approved fund has been released. Disbursement has been to the tune of only Rs 1,000-1,500 crore, as a Covid-induced slowdown in construction has kept a lid on off take. Some of the projects that have received final approval for the funds are Highland Park (Ansal Housing) in Gurgaon; Naman Premier (Naman Group) in Mumbai’s Andheri East; Upper Thane project (Lodha Developers); Primera (Ramprastha Group) in Gurgaon; Asha Bahadurgarh (Essel) in the national capital region; Mantri Serenity (Mantri Developers) in Bengaluru; Lake Grove (TDI) in Sonepat and Vedantam Minaret (Magnus) in Delhi’s Indirapuram. According to an official estimate, the sanctioned funds, once disbursed, will enable the completion of 71,559 houses across the country. SBICAP Ventures, an arm of SBI Capital Markets, is entrusted by the government to manage this AIF. The 101 projects are spread across a broad mix of markets, including metros and also Tier- 2 locations like Karnal, Panipat, Lucknow, Surat, Dehradun, Kota, Nagpur, Jaipur, Nashik, Vizag and Chandigarh. A spokesperson for the fund, set up under the Special Window for Affordable and Mid-Income Housing (SWAMIH), declined to share disbursement details but said: “It is worth noting that disbursements will always be gradual because they will be calibrated to the progress of construction.” Therefore, disbursements will take place in several tranches over a construction period of 1-3 years.”