Once a parcel's base FSI is exhausted, every further square metre of building is bought, and Maharashtra sells it at two counters. One is a government window with a printed price list: premium FSI, charged off the ready reckoner. The other is a bazaar: DRCs minted by surrenders and slum schemes, quoted by brokers, swinging with supply. The commodity is identical, a right to build a metre you could not otherwise build, which makes this the purest make-or-buy decision in development, and one most firms decide by habit instead of arithmetic.
Key takeaways
- Premium FSI: administratively priced off the ready reckoner, stable between revisions, bought from the authority as needed.
- TDR: market-priced certificates, indexation adjusts usable quantum by the generating and receiving plots' RR ratio, supply moves with infrastructure and scheme cycles.
- The only honest comparison is indexed, all-in cost per usable square metre on your specific plot, inside your road-width slab's envelope.
- Composition rules (like the 20 to 50 percent slum-TDR band in Mumbai) and certificate diligence risk belong in the price, not the footnotes.
The two counters, characterised
The window (premium FSI). Price: a prescribed percentage of the reckoner rate for your plot. Properties: perfectly elastic supply, zero counterparty risk, paperwork through the same authority approving your plans, and repricing only when the ASR revises, which makes freeze years like FY 2026-27 quiet windows for assembly. The premium lands as project cost the quarter you commit it.
The bazaar (TDR). Price: whatever DRCs trade at, in Mumbai's liquid market or the thin upcountry ones. Properties: supply is lumpy (infrastructure cycles mint certificates in batches), indexation converts the certificate's face quantum by the RR ratio of generating and receiving plots, composition bands apply (Mumbai's slum-TDR share of 20 to 50 percent of TDR consumed), and the certificate itself carries diligence risk: provenance, endorsements, the surrender's paperwork.
An analogy: electricity from the grid versus a power purchase agreement. The grid (premium FSI) is always there at the tariff; the PPA (TDR) is negotiated, sometimes far cheaper, and carries counterparty homework. Factories run both; so do well-run projects.
The spreadsheet, in five lines
- 1
Fix the envelope
Road width, zone, plot size: the slab defines total loadable area and any premium-versus-TDR split the code imposes. No arithmetic matters outside the envelope.
- 2
Price the window
Premium FSI rate for your plot, per usable square metre, today, and its exposure to the next ASR revision if your drawdown spans one.
- 3
Price the bazaar, indexed
Quoted DRC price adjusted by the indexation ratio for your receiving plot, plus the composition band's weighted blend, per usable square metre.
- 4
Load the frictions
Certificate diligence and defect risk on the TDR side; cash-flow timing on both (premium on commitment, certificates on purchase); broker costs in thin markets.
- 5
Decide, and diarise the redecision
Buy the cheaper metre, but re-run the sheet each quarter: ASR revisions, certificate floods after infrastructure minting, and demand swings all flip the answer mid-project.
What actually flips the answer
Reckoner events. A revision raises the window's price overnight and simultaneously reshuffles TDR indexation; the quarters straddling a revision are where mixed strategies earn their keep.
Minting cycles. A ring road or cluster scheme releasing certificates into a thin market depresses TDR prices temporarily; buyers with dry powder and completed diligence take those windows.
Your own timeline. Premium FSI suits staged, approval-linked drawdown; TDR rewards opportunistic purchase and patient holding, which is a treasury question as much as a procurement one, and it interacts with the three-account discipline governing where the money sits meanwhile.
The demand test, always. Every loaded metre must eventually sell as carpet area someone wants. Anita Rao's rule (illustrative, as ever) after one over-loaded Pune tower: the absorption data votes before the procurement spreadsheet does. Her firm now caps loading at what the micro-market's filed velocity supports, then optimises the premium-TDR mix inside that cap, and the tower that taught the lesson is still selling its top floors.
Negotiating leverage runs through the window: the authority's premium price is the bazaar's ceiling. Quote it in every DRC negotiation, because no certificate is worth more than the metre the municipality sells with no questions asked.
ReraGenie's area consolidated reports supply the demand half of the sheet, filed supply, absorption and achieved densities around your plot, and the Rs 2,999 project analysis prices the competitive set your loaded floors will sell against.
The one-line summary
One commodity, two counters: price the window, index the bazaar, respect the envelope and the composition bands, let the absorption data cap the appetite, and re-run the sheet every quarter, because in this market the cheaper metre changes address. Both counters are priced off the same benchmark, so one annual revision moves the whole sheet at once: ready reckoner rates as a cost driver.
Evaluating a micro-market or a land parcel?
The ReraGenie project analysis reads every filing in your competitive set: supply, absorption, pricing and promoter records. Rs 2,999 per project, area consolidated reports from Rs 2,999.
See the project analysis