New Delhi’s Housing Boom Hits a Snag

B.N. Mishra aspired to become a suburbanite. In 2009 the New Delhi resident plunked down 2.2 million rupees ($45,800) for a three-bedroom unit in a new residential complex going up in Greater Noida, a bedroom community east of the Indian capital. Three years later, Mishra, 36, who runs a software business, is close to giving up hope that his family will ever move in. The development he bought into is caught in a legal dispute that pits builders against the villagers who once owned the land. “It has been a huge roller coaster ride,” says the first-time home buyer. “If there is no solution, I’ll have to continue with renting or buy a house that is ready.”

Elsewhere in India, protests by villagers who have been forced to sell their land to the government—usually at below-market rates—have stalled billions of dollars worth of projects, including steel mills, auto assembly plants, and highways. “The issue is a critical component of the overall investment climate,” says Dharmakirti Joshi, an economist at Crisil, the local unit of Standard & Poor’s. “I believe it will get sorted out, but if it doesn’t it will have repercussions.”