Faridabad till the current century and the last five years has never been a preferred destination for the IT companies or MNC’s for setting up new units or for investment purposes. The reason for this was that the city was not really geared up for connectivity to the Capital and also lacking in the requisite infrastructure to support expansion. There were only two means of connectivity to the capital and that was either by road or by trains which were at the most times very crowded and unreliable. Another reason for not investing in Faridabad was the non availability of power. There were frequent power cuts and for long periods. Private investors and MNC’s preferred NOIDA or Gurgaon as hubs for investment purposes and these cities flourished.
Then with the coming of the 21st century the situation started to change. With the coming of the Delhi Metro to Balabgarh and the cab companies like Ola and Meru the connectivity improved tremendously. The power situation in Faridabad and generally all over the country started to improve and due to the saturation of available space in NOIDA and Gurgaon the prices of real estate in NOIDA and Gurgaon started to skyrocket and purchasing real estate and setting up an office or industry in Gurgaon particularly became very costly. Faridabad started to get more demand for setting up industry and there were proposals for a number of IT Parks to be set up in the city. The government also proposed the setting up of an Industrial Model Township (IMT) in the Nehar Par area of Faridabad known as Greater Faridabad. So once again new Industrial units were returning to Faridabad and with that the employment opportunities in Faridabad increased tremendously. Sectors 66 to 74 of the Greater Faridabad area have been set aside for the development of Industrial sectors.
The improvement of the employment opportunities in Faridabad led to the demand for residential properties on an increasing level. In Faridabad the availability of Affordable housing projects also improved with the regular announcement of new high rise affordable housing projects and the demand for affordable flats in Faridabad increased. Besides that the numbers of affordable housing projects being constructed in Faridabad were much more than in either Gurgaon or NOIDA. So people with lower budgets started to make a beeline for purchase of affordable housing options in Faridabad. The prices of real estate in Faridabad started moving upwards and in the coming years it is expected that Faridabad and the real estate and its prices are going to overtake the prices in both Gurgaon and NOIDA.
A number of other infrastructural developments have been planned in Greater Faridabad. Sewage treatment plants are planned to be set up for sectors 75 to 89 and there is a proposal for upgrading a government hospital into a medical college. The government has also planned to announce tax exemption schemes for setting up industry in the IMT and Ballabgarh. There are plans to construct spurs to the main Metro line to connect the Cross Canal Greater Faridabad area to the main stream. Faridabad has been included in the planned 100 smart cities to be developed all over the country.
All this is hopefully going to lead to give a boost to the real estate in Faridabad in the coming decade.