BENGALURU : The e-auctioning of corner sites by the Bengaluru Development Authority has raised much-needed financial resources for the cash-strapped organisation. As of March 11, a total of 1,566 sites were auctioned in six rounds and the returns have been impressive, with a site in HSR Layout raking in a record Rs 8.09 crore.
A senior BDA official said, “We earned revenue of Rs 1,412 crore from auctioning of corner sites. Barring 135 sites, for which we rejected the bids as they were low, the rest have exceeded our expectations.”
Corner sites are valued much higher than regular Bengaluru Development Authority sites due to their accessibility, good ventilation and natural lighting and fetch the BDA 25 per cent more returns.
The official said, “The Bengaluru Development Authority plans to e-auction 2,500 sites in total. We expected to earn Rs 906 crore from the 1,566 sites which went under the hammer. The overall amount we got is over Rs 500 crore. The process of collection of payments is on and Rs 200 crore is yet to be collected. This has given us the much-needed funding.”
Though many sites went above the bid price, a site at HSR Layout Sector-2, measuring 206.9 sqmt (over 40x60 sq ft), fetched us 1.6 times (160 per cent) the floor price. “We were looking at Rs 3.1 crore and we got 8.09 crore. The final amount works out to `3,91,000 per sqmt while we had only estimated Rs 1,50,000 per sqmt,” the official explained.
The other areas where the sites were auctioned were Anjanapura, Banashankari 6th Stage, BTM Layout 4th and 5th Stages, East of NGEF, Sir M Visvesvaraya Layout, Jnana Bharathi and Rajajinagar. Bids for 135 sites were rejected as they were 5 per cent lesser that the base price. “They will also be re-auctioned,” the official said.