As the total number of foreign students enrolled in India has risen by 36 percent since 2012-13 because of a slew of recent government measures, the demand for student housing has never been higher.
To boost the ‘Study in India’ initiative, the government has declared an Ind-SAT program in the previous Budget, proposed to be held in Asian and African countries to attract overseas students to Indian universities.
In the recent Budget, minister of finance Nirmala Sitharaman allocated Rs 99,300 crore towards the education sector and Rs 3,000 crore for skill development.
The government expects to draw in 200,000 international students to India, quite fourfold the present number. Currently, the entire number of foreign students enrolled in India is 47,427 from 164 different countries.
The last three years have seen a reasonably decent growth of 6.55 percent in terms of the number of beds in hostels across the highest ten states. However, it’s not kept pace with the rise in student enrolments.
In 2017-18, the entire enrolments were estimated at 36.6 million, while the hostel intake was 6.5 million. In 2018-19, the number of enrolments rose to more than 37 million, while hostel intake still stood at 6.5 million, it said.
Hostels and residential facilities in Indian educational institutes can meet only a fraction of the scholar housing demand.
Pune
A major IT hub and emerging Smart City, Pune’s academic offerings have earned it the appellative of ‘Oxford of the East’. Home to almost 3 lakh students, it’s one among India’s largest education centers that attract students from across India and on the far side. Not astonishingly, Pune has witnessed a spurt in students’ accommodation development with national players establishing the presence and planning aggressive expansion.
Bengaluru
Apart from the IT/Tes industry, the education sector also boosts Bengaluru’s real estate market. According to the HRD Ministry’s All India Survey on Higher Education 2018-19, Bengaluru Urban District tops in the number of colleges with 880.
Every year, the town attracts thousands of local, outstation and expatriate students. In fact, with over 10,000 overseas students, Karnataka has had the very best number of scholars coming from foreign countries.
Delhi-NCR
Home to the country’s top colleges at Delhi University campuses and dozens of private educational institutes, Delhi has traditionally attracted students from various places. Kamla Nagar, Vijay Nagar and Hudson Lane in the north campus and Satya Niketan, Anand Niketan in the south campus, scores of student accommodations have come up across the city.
The neighboring pockets of Noida and Gurgaon have also seen a spurt privately colleges, creating demand for student housing. Sectors 121, 63 and 73 in Noida and Sohna Road in Gurgaon are the most popular locations for student housing.
New emerging centers
Apart from these leading cities, new student housing opportunities are rising in tier 2 and three cities like Kota, Pilani, Indore, Nagpur, and Mesra, which have premier academic institutes.
These smaller cities provide more lucrative opportunities for investors in this segment because of low land costs and scope for expansion and experiment.
