WOOING BABUS: DLF offers up to Rs 27 lakh discount to government officials

DLF, India’s biggest real estate company by market capitalization, has offered discounts up to whopping Rs 27 lakh on its residential projects in eight cities to serving and retired bureaucrats. Gurgaon, its home turf, is however excluded from the list of cities where it has showered such discounts. In a big print advertisement designed with a heap of office files with three colours as in the national flag, the company has called it “a special tribute offer from DLF to all government and defence officials”.

In this week of Republic Day, the company has tried to catch in on the patriotic sentiments. It says in the advertisement: “It’s the time we return the favour of those who serve the nation selflessly”.

Real estate and auto companies occasionally try to woo government employees mainly for two reasons. First, the government employees form a sizable target audience for big value purchases as their job is one of the most secured, and many of them sit on huge cash reserves. There are over 5.5 million serving Central government employees alone. Also, such an offer becomes a window to reach a number of influential customers at the heart of power centers.

The DLF’s discount between Rs 1 lakh to Rs 27 lakh for its residential projects to sarkari employees, is however, valid till March 25, 2012 only in eight cities: Bengaluru, Chennai, Jalandhar, Kochi, Lucknow, New Chandigarh, Panchkula and Shimla. According to the advertisement, the offer could be availed by serving and retired officials of the Central and state government, banks, PSUs, railways, defence and paramilitary forces.

Ex-home secretary GK Pillai wants PERC report to be thrown to dustbin

Outspoken former home secretary GK Pillai wrote in a column in a national newspaper that the recent report of Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy calling Indian bureaucracy the worst in Asia deserves to be consigned to the dustbin. This is how Pillai has argued on the issue: “If India scored 9.21 where 10 is the worst score, I can only conclude that the expatriate businessmen polled had no idea of what India is and how businesses in India — both local and foreign — are thriving. The report is, therefore, fit to be consigned to the dustbin, where I am sure it has already gone.”