IL&FS set to deliver Maytas Hill County dwellings

The IL&FS group has good news for about 875 persons who had booked apartments and villas in Maytas Hill County, an integrated residential-cum-SEZ project of the beleaguered real estate company Maytas Properties.

Though the execution of the project led to “significant loss”, IL&FS, which took over the real estate company in January 2011, has completed construction of the villas and is also all set to start delivering the apartments to buyers from the ‘Diwali’ day in November, this year.

Promoted by the family of erstwhile Satyam Computer founder B Ramalinga Raju, Maytas Properties was hit hard when the accounting fraud at the IT services firm came to light in January 2009. The execution of the Hill County project came to a standstill following the arrest of Raju.

The Rs 1,100-crore project involved construction of 320 villas and 800 luxury apartments in the first phase. While the price of villas ranged from Rs 1 crore to over Rs 2 crore depending upon its size and type, the cost of the apartments was of the order of Rs 60 lakh to Rs 1.75 crore.

“We have already delivered 167 villas to the customers and the remaining villas are ready for delivery,” Maytas Properties chairman, Arun K Saha, told Business Standard.

Chief executive officer, MD Khattar, said the company had sent letters to the customers to inspect and take possession of their villas

Saha said the company was also constructing 9 out of the proposed 11 apartment towers phase-wise. The apartments in the first two towers would be delivered from the Diwali day.

He said IL&FS had incurred “significant loss” due to execution of the project. The Mumbai-based infrastructure company incurred losses because most of the buyers of villas and apartments had paid money before it took over the Hyderabad-based company. Besides, the project was facing cost overruns.

According to him, as many as 275 villas and 600 apartments were sold before the ownership of Maytas Properties changed hands. Consequently, the new owner, IL&FS, had to incur losses, which could be of the order of “a few hundred crores (of rupees).”

Saha, however, said the loss would be recovered by IL&FS through development and sale of various land parcels Maytas has in and around Hyderabad. Maytas has land parcels to the tune of 600 acres, which would be developed over a period of three-five years.