HARYANA PLANS 100-ACRE AUTOMOBILE VILLAGE
You might no longer have to wait for the biennial Auto Expo to explore automobiles of all brands at one location. Haryana is being considered for a proposal from a private company wanting to set up an Auto Village, over hundreds of acres.
The proposed Village is to have about 80 vehicle showrooms and workshops of all brands across segments (cars, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, commercial vehicles, tractors, etc) at one location. Also a regional office (RTO) of the State Transport Authority, recycling units, test tracks, a new vehicle launch zone, financing institutions, component shops, fuel stations, hotels and an amusement park. In addition to this facility, another land parcel of over 100 acres to develop a residential project, for the thousands who will be employed in the Auto Village.
Himanshu Narayan, the director of the proposed Auto Village project, said he had offers for land parcels from a few private owners but the facility could also come up on land purchased from the state. “All I can say is the first facility will come up in the National Capital Region, in Haryana and not more than 100 km from Delhi,” he said.
Auto Village says it is in talks with the state and has sought waiver of value added tax and vehicle registration charges, to make prices attractive and pull buyers from city-based showrooms. “This will give a new direction to the automobile industry. Buyers will have the advantage of comparing and test-driving different brands at one location, securing finance and then driving out with a registered vehicle. It will be a one-day affair,” said Narayan. The project will need investment of ~900 crore, of which about ~500 crore will be in the facility and the rest will be the cost of land. “Funding will not be an issue,” said Narayan, who has a hotel business and has constructed some housing projects. The Haryana government, he says, has assured all administrative clearances in a month.
Auto Village’s construction of the commercial facility is likely to start in the second half of this calendar year and be operational by the end of 2019, with prefabricated structures. Narayan said Auto Village will offer space for showrooms, workshops and other facilities on a long-term lease. The concept seeks to benefit from the problem of limited land availability in cities and its surging prices.
Auto Village, which claims to have copyrighted the concept, said it had also got interest from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Goa for such a project. It plans to use Haryana as a model to take the concept to every state.
Narayan says there is an urgent need to bring buyers and automobile manufacturers to a common platform, the way it happens in large malls, so that a buyer gets to evaluate and compare various products at one place, instead of visiting several automobile dealers before deciding.