SC DIRECTS SBICAP TO INVEST ₹625 CR IN SIX STALLED PROJECTS OF AMRAPALI GROUP

NEW DELHI: Offering relief to homebuyers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed SBICAP Ventures Ltd to invest about ₹625 crore for the completion of six stalled real estate projects of Amrapali Group in Noida and Greater Noida.

The money will be paid out of the stress fund corpus known as SWAMIH Investment Fund set up by the Centre in November 2019 for helping complete unfinished real estate projects. SBICAP Ventures is the investment manager to the first Alternative Investment under the special window.

The six beneficiary projects earmarked by SBICAP Ventures are Silicon City-1, Silicon City-2 and Crystal Homes in Noida and three Centurion Park projects in Greater Noida, namely Low Rise, O2 Valley and Tropical Garden.

These projects are currently being managed by National Building Construction Corporation in the capacity of project management consultant after Amrapali group’s registration was cancelled by the apex court in July last year for siphoning off homebuyers’ money. Appearing for SBICAP, senior advocate Harish Salve informed the Supreme Court: “The total funding estimated for the six projects comes to about ₹625 crore. This investment will be made at the rate of interest of 12% that will fetch SBICAP approximately ₹169 crore.” On Monday, the Court had asked Salve to consider scaling down the interest rate to 8%. Salve refused, claiming this could put SWAMIH’s future operations in peril.