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 crores. 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.com, the property was registered on June 1 and a stamp duty of Rs 77.46 lakhs 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 the natural 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 belie a 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.

--------------------------------------

Mumbai : Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan’s daughter Suhana Khan has acquired a property in Alibaug, a beachfront destination for Mumbai’s rich and famous, for an estimated Rs. 13 crores. The 1.5-acre property includes three built-up structures on the land parcel.

The deal was concluded and registered on June 1. She has paid a stamp duty of Rs. 77.46 lakhs for registering the property, show documents accessed through Indextap.com.

Given its proximity to the country’s commercial capital, Alibaug has emerged as the new weekend hotspot for celebrities and high net worth individuals that include industrialists, CXOs, Bollywood actors, startup founders, and cricketers.

While Bollywood actor couple Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone recently made investments in this area, various other big names including former and current cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma have also bought property in Alibaug.

Last year, cricket star Virat Kohli and his actress wife Anushka Sharma jointly bought an 8-acre land parcel in the beach town near Mumbai through two separate transactions for nearly Rs. 19.24 crores.

ET’s mailed query to Shah Rukh Khan’s office remained unanswered until the publication of this report.

A raft of government efforts aimed at enhancing connectivity between Mumbai and Alibaug are driving real estate development in the erstwhile fishing village, making it an increasingly desirable destination for developers, homebuyers, and investors.

Limited connectivity had so far impeded the real estate growth potential here. However, infrastructure projects built over the Navi Mumbai region should cut down the travel time to just over an hour from almost three hours needed now.

The Virar-Alibaug multimodal corridor, Roll-on-Roll-off (RORO) service from Mumbai, Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL), widening of the Mumbai-Goa NH 66 Highway and Vadkhal Alibaug Road should boost developments and investments in Alibaug.