MSTC – emerging as a major E-Commerce Platform for real-estate in India
MSTC launches customer focussed services
After reinventing itself thrice over since inception, MSTC, a mini-ratna public sector enterprise, should now explore the feasibility of becoming an aggregator of all actors in the real-estate sector and giving an identity to every real-estate asset in the country, said Mr Nagendra Nath Sinha, Secretary Ministry of Steel, Government of India the parent ministry of MSTC---known for e-auctioning coal to spectrum to Non-Performing Assets to shaven hair from Tirupati---speaking at the CII-MSTC Conference on Real Estate Synergy: Unveiling Opportunities through e-commerce at New Delhi on Thursday.
“MSTC should see whether it can do a complete integration of all stakeholders in real-estate starting from land-surveyors to brokers who possess local intelligence to those who value land and other actors. The PSU, which has reinvented itself many times over should also see whether it can become a platform to give an identity to every real-estate asset in the country by geo-locating them” said Mr Sinha, adding that it’s time to integrate Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Block-chain to add value to MSTC’s operations.
During the Inaugural Session of the Conference, Secretary, Ministry of Steel, Government of India launch two unique services of MSTC – MSTC Webpage of Property e-Auctions and Ticket Raising System. From the MSTC Webpage of Property e-Auctions, buyers – sellers can check all the scheduled and upcoming auctions being conducted by MSTC, thus offering a marketplace and ease of business. Under the Ticket Raising System, customers can submit any query which may arise from the buyers perspective. By launch of this system, MSTC plans to address all such queries in a structured manner.
“E-commerce space in real-estate is a missing link in a sense in this country. In many developed countries, they have all the relevant data on real-estate assets available in public domain. MSTC can innovate in this area. In India, customers while purchasing real-estate assets fear about the risks related to cost, timeliness and quality. Mainstreaming e-auctions in the real-estate sector, bringing all real-estate data in public will address that fear,” said Mr Arun Kumar Srivastava, Member, Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority, asking the question “Can MSTC become the Amazon of real-estate in India?”
He suggested that MSTC should partner with agencies like NBCC and other large real-estate private companies to make this possible. Both Mr Sinha and Mr Srivastava pointed out that with the economy and urbanisation growing fast in India, and the real-estate becoming a regulated market, these services which will help bring fairness and transparency to the sector will become essential sooner than later.
The country’s real-estate industry is estimated at $265 billion in 2023 and is expected to touch $829 billion by 2028 growing at a CAGR of 25.6% during the period, according to market estimates. According to the, the industry is likely to reach $ 1 trillion in size by 2030.
MSTC has sold properties worth Rs 4268 crore in last three and a half years, and auctioned Non-Performing Assets worth Rs 24,459 crore in the same period, said Mr Surinder Kumar Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, MSTC. “We have been primarily a B2B company but in banking sector we have started selling to individual customers and ventured into B2C category” added Mr Gupta. He sought the partnership with CII and private sector to plan the next big moves of MSTC in the real-estate sector.
“Being a government platform, MSTC is associated with bringing fairness and transparency to its services in the way it sells assets on its e-auction platform. We are witnessing an enormous increased demand in residential units, office spaces, retail spaces, retail leasing services in malls and other marketplaces. And MSTC will be a great platform to offer these e-commerce services by connecting buyers and sellers on its platform” said Mr Harsh Vardhan Bansal, chairman, CII Delhi Sub-Committee on Infrastructure, Real-Estate and Urban Development and Co-Founder, Unity Group.
30 November 2023
New Delhi