BSHB managing director Anupam Kumar Suman at the meeting in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Bihar State Housing Board has set the ball rolling for one of the biggest real estate projects in Patna under the public sector in recent times.

The first pre-bid and investors’ meet for some of the residential and commercial projects in the city was held on Tuesday.

Around 15 developers from Bihar as well as other states including Bengal and Maharashtra deliberated on various stipulations related to the development of 1,596 residential flats at Sector 5 in Bahadurpur and commercial developments over an area of 0.5 acre at Hanuman Nagar and 1.7 acres at L-Sector in Kankerbagh.

Under the public-private partnership mode, the private developer would develop housing units on residential land. In return, they would get commercial land on which they would get lease rights for development of hotels, malls and offices.

The queries and doubts of most developers were related to financial feasibility of the three projects discussed on Tuesday. The BSHB officials said the developers would be able to earn revenue through renting out or sub-letting commercial properties at the rates fixed by the board. But many developers present in the meet seemed apprehensive of such modus operandi in execution of the project.

“Developers like me who have come from other cities like Calcutta are mostly attracted to the project of commercial development at Lohianagar and residential development at Bahadurpur. However, it is not feasible for us to do residential development over an area of 10.17 acres and hand it to the BSHB for getting lease rights of mere 4.2 acres of commercial land. The BSHB should give us the lease rights of some residential flats as well,” said Rachit Sangvi, director, business development of Calcutta-based Merlin Projects Private Limited.

Sachidanand Rai, the managing director of Calcutta-based Eden City Group, said: “The estimated investment in the residential-cum-commercial project at Bahadurpur and Lohianagar is Rs 561 crore. It would take a considerably long time for developers to get returns from the corresponding commercial projects. The BSHB must allow the developers to sell some of the residential flats.”

There was, however, a consensus among the developers that the value of the commercial land which they would be getting for developing residential flats is very high in the open market. The BSHB officials, however, seemed confident on the financial feasibility of the projects.