Decrypted| India has 57 'Ghost Malls', know all about it

Some of the malls in India are haunted, well not literally but the data is saying so. Wondering what are we talking about? According to a report by international property consultant, Knight Frank, 57 of the 271 operational shopping malls in India are in a dilapidated state and need immediate rescue. This research report has termed these shopping centres as 'Ghost Malls'.

What are 'Ghost Malls'?

According to the Knight Frank report, a mall with a vacancy of more than 40% is considered a ghost mall. These abandoned malls have high vacancy rates or low consumer traffic levels and that makes them deteriorate in some manner.

The data suggests that the Delhi (NCR) region has the largest 3.35 million square feet of space occupied by such malls. Bengaluru has 1.38 million sq. ft. of space occupied by them, followed by Hyderabad with 1.14 million sq ft and Mumbai with 1.13 million sq ft space. The other Indian cities with large number of ghost malls, are Ahmedabad (0.37 million sq ft); Pune (0.37 million sq ft); Kolkata (0.32 million sq ft), and Chennai (0.33 million sq ft), respectively.

Reasons behind India having so many 'Ghost Malls':

There are multiple factors that contribute to the rise in the stocks of ghost malls in the country:

1. Lack of due diligence

2. Mall shortcomings like size, ownership patterns, design issues, faulty layouts

3. Lack of customer walk flow management

4. Rise in online shopping

5. Lack of anchor tenants

Notably, this is not an entirely gloomy scenario as Knight Frank's report also gave positive news on retail sales in the malls and said that they are expected to touch $39 billion by 2028.

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