Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath Suggests Linking Property Prices With Air And Water Quality Amid Rising Pollution – News18

Last Updated:November 26, 2024, 4:02 PM IST

Nithin Kamath, co-founder of Zerodha, recently proposed a solution to address the rising air and water pollution.

Pollution has become an ever-growing concern, particularly in urban areas. The Delhi-NCR region recently recorded dangerously high pollution levels, prompting action from the authorities. As the debate over rising pollution continues, especially with the onset of winter each year, Nithin Kamath, co-founder of Zerodha, has proposed a solution.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he highlighted how pollution affects urban life and the economy. He included a news clip showing the number of deaths related to air pollution in India which he called worrying.

Kamath suggested linking property prices to the air and water quality in the area. In this system, real estate values would change based on the quality of natural resources in the area. He believed this would encourage property owners to improve the environment and work together to make the whole area better.

“Maybe a property price discount for the quality of air and water is the solution. If economics accounted for this, maybe we would all figure this out. Essentially the air and water quality determines the rate for the property,” Nithin wrote.

“Also, this would probably turn a property owner into the owner of the place, and better odds of fixing it if working as a group. For example, if I went from owning a property in JP Nagar and caring for it to caring for my layout in JP Nagar and then the whole of JP Nagar, it could have a better outcome,” he added.

Kamath also mentioned that pollution isn’t just a problem in Delhi but in many urban areas across India such as Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru where air quality is also poor.

Take a look at the post here:

Social media users quickly responded to Nithin’s post, calling his idea to tackle pollution innovative.

One user commented, “Linking property prices to air and water quality is an interesting idea. It could incentivize collective action, but ensuring accountability—especially from authorities—would be a big challenge.”

Another user suggested, “The government also can impose taxes based on air and water quality in that particular locality.”

“That’s why when I see builders asking 10s to 100s of crores of rupees for the tiny pieces of luxury real estate in cities where people are actually breathing toxic air, it doesn’t look less than a scam!” someone pointed out.

A person shared, “I wish they would adjust the price based on air quality. The entire real estate will collapse.”

“This is THE solution! We’ve been developing a similar GIS-based approach. Offering a discount on the stamp duty collected by the government, inversely proportional to the AQI and directly related to the green cover, is a logical and impactful idea,” another said.

An X user offered his own suggestion writing, “Only optimum solution is to decongest cities and create more smaller cities spreading equally. Problem is when every startup /industry comes to the same limited number of cities.”

Since being shared online, Nithin’s post has accumulated over 1 lakh views so far.