Date:10/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/05/10/stories/2006051021100200.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

ISB forays into real estate research

Special Correspondent

Indu Projects Ltd. to provide US $ 550,000 for initiative

Top professor to be selected to lead research, organise programmes
Research to focus on setting up database, arriving at real estate values

Chair to also come up with suggestions on need to rework policies

HYDERABAD: Thanks to the ongoing real estate boom across the country, the Indian School of Business has announced setting up of its first research chair for `real estate and urban studies.'

To be part of the Wadhwani Centre of Entrepreneurial Development (WCED) of the ISB, the research chair is sponsored by the city-based Indu Projects Ltd., an infrastructure development company, which would provide US $ 550,000 (about Rs. 2.5 crores) over the next five years. ISB would select a top professor of international stature to lead research, organise conferences/seminars and interface with academia to debate on key issues of real estate and urban development.

Announcing the new initiative, ISB dean M. Rammohan Rao and WCED executive director V. Chandrasekhar said the chair was set up in the light of the significant development in real estate venture funding in recent years. While there were a host of clients to be serviced, there was little information available about real estate. The research would focus on setting up a database, interaction with the industry to arrive at real estate values and making the area professionalised over a period of time. Besides providing a platform for the sections concerned to exchange views and ideas, the chair would come out with suggestions on need for reworking existing policies.