Suhana Khan buys Rs 12.9 crore property in Alibaug
MUMBAI: Suhana Khan, the daughter of actor Shah Rukh Khan who is about to make her debut in a film playing a popular comic character, has purchased a 1. 5-acre property with three houses in Alibaug for Rs 12.91 crore. The property, in Thal village, belonged to another old-time film family —descendants of veteran actor Durga Khote.
Shah Rukh Khan already owns a property adjacent to it. According to IndexTap(dot)com, the property was registered on June 1 and a stampduty of Rs 77. 46 lakh was paid.
The coastal stretch of Alibaug has been pitched for its winning combination of rural idyll, increased connectivity to the city, and an option away from the concrete claustrophobia of Mumbai.
While the cottages bought by the Khans are old-fashioned and in keeping with thenatural habitat, the rest of Alibaug is seeing ad hoc structures pop up, with no connection to the surrounding context. The swaying palms and open beaches beliea growing reality of haphazard construction emerging like a slow rash across the countryside with no infrastructure to back it.
Already, several villages have been confronted with water shortage with ground water tables declining across the terrain.
“We have started running out of water and have had to buy water from tankers, which has never happened in all the years that I have been there,” says Rahul Goregaonkar, who has ancestral property in Dhokavade village where a 13-storey building has come up next to a lake. “My neighbours have been buying tanker water since April this year,” he adds. “All this is very alarming. ”
In place of sporadic bungalows in the villages, there are now a number of low-rises and high-rises that have come up after the latest development plan guidelines. Many more are awaiting approvals and are on the verge of starting.
“I wish that the development would happen along with proper planning for water, garbage collection, drainage—amenities which go hand in hand to make a place sustainable in the long run,” says Alibaug home-owner Naheed Carrimjee, who initiated a recycling drive a few years ago, which collects about 500kg of garbage every month, but can scarcely stop the piles of plastic that fringe the roads and beaches.
Suhana Khan is one of many Mumbai-based actors who have bought homes and vast tracts of land in Alibaug.
Others include Juhi Chawla, who has converted her property into an organic farm, Deepika Padukone and Ranvir Singh, and Anushka Sharma. Incidentally, Thal, where the Khans have property, is the village where writer Anita Desai’s famous novel ‘Village by the Sea’ was located.
