The National Capital Region is a major education hub in India. Students from across the globe come to Delhi and surrounding regions to study. It is estimated that the regions has over 657 educational institutes and enrolls more than 10,00,000 students every year. The education demand is not limited to one region but across disciplines, like medical, management, engineering, and arts. An estimated 46% of the enrolled students come from outside NCR and approx. 5% of them are from abroad.
Although most of the educational organizations were in direct or indirect control of the government, the trend has largely shifted towards private colleges and universities. They have mushroomed up all over Gurgaon and Noida, tapping the availability of large land banks. Apart from direct education, NCR is also a major coaching and preparatory destination.
This opens up large avenues for student housing as college hostels themselves are scarce. They have never been able to keep up with demand. Private players too have focused more towards establishing infrastructure for academics instead of setting up new hostels. It is estimated that only 10% or less of the students coming from outstation get preferable accommodation in college hostels.
The demand has led to the opening of a number of private hostels which are quite popular with students, especially females. The rent is usually high but the location is invariably close to colleges in residential areas. Often they are a poor attempt to dress up a Paying Guest to a hostel. A cheaper option is paying guest accommodation which has many more facilities and is spread all over from Indirapuram to Noida and Gurgaon.
Another option left for students is to rent shared apartments. A number of male students traditionally preferred it, but off late female students have also started preferring them. Security remains key in such areas. Also, many irregular or illegal buildings are let out for such purpose.
This makes it quite evident that organized and well-structured student housing is the need of the hour. The sector is highly unorganized and often students fall prey to false promises and cheated out by land owners.
Such quality options are now being made available especially in Noida region.
