The Wall

Kerala state has witnessed massive changes in the land-use pattern in the last 30 years. The area under total land-use has increased significantly and has more than doubled since the year 2001. The area under residential land-use has more than tripled and has reached higher proportions. The area under commercial land-use has also increased significantly from 404.72 to 508.50 hectares during the period from 1981 to 2001.

Transport areas have also increased due to the emphasis placed on improving the transportation infrastructures. The growth of residential, commercial, transport hubs etc has been at the cost of open land, which has dwindled significantly. Open lands used in earlier times as parks, playgrounds and agricultural lands are vanishing quickly for settling the people moving into the urban areas. The increase in the use of land for other purposes is already affecting the health of the urban dwellers.

In Kerala Real Estate sector, property values have gone up significantly in places where the real estate lobby has been quite active. It has happened in earlier times in the prominent cities of Kochi, Kozhikode and Trivandrum. This trend is now percolating to all other towns and municipalities adjacent to these prominent cities.

Until the advent of the global recession, major changes have overtaken the real estate sector. The emergence of the state as a prominent investment hub assisted in a major way in enhancing property values in almost all the major towns and cities. While property values crashed to more than one-tenth of their earlier value in some parts of the United States, in Kerala, such a trend is unlikely even during these times of recession. While the agrarian crisis is still continuing, it has not resulted in a fall in the property values.


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