Greater Noida – the next major IT destination?

Actual site images of Wipro IT Park by AUGTICS, Sep-08

Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority website indicated that since the NCR has emerged as a hub for IT industry, Greater Noida could emerge as a premier IT destination of the future, leveraging its proximity to the national capital and availability of quality urban infrastructure, including housing.

There is absolutely no doubt that Greater Noida has world-class infrastructure and facilities. There are numerous new initiatives (F1 race track, Night Safari, etc) that will add to the glamour of this futuristic city. There is going to be huge supply of quality residential apartments (ref “GroundTruths of Residential Apartments” AUG-SEP 2008 issue). Additionally, there are numerous malls that will come up (read “Mall Culture at Greater Noida” page.19, this issue) in near future. Greater Noida is also fast emerging as “Education Hub” producing over 10,000 students annually (refer “Education Hub” page. 52 this issue) offering an attractive option of manpower availability to the IT companies.

All new housing and malls will require “users”. The “property dealer community” of Greater Noida (refer “Property Market – Informed View from Greater Noida Dealers” page. 54 this issue) is laying a lot of importance and emphasis on IT as the key driver for the growth of Greater Noida property market. In near future, IT sector is expected to fuel the “demand” of real estate.

AUGTICS Real Estate Research team carried out an extensive survey of the existing and upcoming IT facilities at Greater Noida and unearthed a few facts:

A. few BIG IT companies have Greater Noida mapped in their plans:

1).  ST Micro Electronics has taken a lead in moving to Greater Noida. A world-class facility spread over 25 acres at “Knowledge Park III” is

fully operational.

2). WIPRO was the next in starting IT operations at Greater Noida. 10 acres out of a 51-acre plot of Knowledge Park IV is operational.

3). WIPRO also has a 100-acre plot allocated in “TechZone” and this is expected to be operational in the next few years (construction has not yet started).

4). NIIT Technologies and NIIT Multimedia also have plots

(20 & 10 acres, respectively) allocated in “TechZone”.

5). NIIT Technologies building is under construction and is

likely to be operational by the next year. Construction has not yet started at NIIT Multimedia plot.

6). We can expect that a few other known IT companies will

follow Wipro and NIIT in starting facilities here at Greater Noida.

B. Several IT Parks will become operational in near future:

1). Construction is in full swing in ten new IT/SEZ parks at Greater Noida.

a. These ten IT parks are spread over 230+ acres.

b. All these parks boast of “world class” specification and high quality working space.

c. This will create about 19,000,000 sq. ft. (19 million sq. ft.) of space by 2010 (see details of each project at page-)

d. Most of these IT parks have integrated space (shopping, commercial and residential)

e. Assuming 60% of the space is to be used for IT operation and assuming per seat space to be of 100 to 120 sq. ft., there will be about 100,000 seats created in these ten IT parks.

f. If and when these 100,000 seats are fully used, there will be a tremendous impact on the real estate market in Greater Noida.

2).  At least 20 additional IT parks are in pipeline.

a. We have been able to located 4 of these 20 plots and there is no construction work in progress on them. For the rest of the 16 plots, allocation information is available on the Greater Noida website.

b. Exact size and plan of these plots is not k

nown. However, we do expect that these 20 projects will generate additional several million sq. ft. of IT space in Greater Noida.

It will be extremely important for all these new IT parks to sell their space and attract the IT companies to start operations here at Greater Noida. If and when that happens, Greater Noida economy will truly have a positive impact.