How the unfinished city of Lavasa became a nightmare for Indian banks

This onetime hilltop paradise is becoming for some a hell on earth.
The days of zero crime are over. Garbage collection is sporadic, so litter soils the man-made lake. Storefronts are vacant. Signs of neglect are everywhere: maintenance is late or nonexistent. And that’s for the construction already done. For the unfinished building works—i.e. most of it—there is little happening.
Two decades ago, then-billionaire Ajit Gulabchand envisioned something very different: a city called Lavasa modelled on the cotton-candy harbour of Italy’s Portofino, a four-hour drive from the slums and pollution that pervade so much of India’s financial capital of Mumbai. To deliver that dream, he hired the architects at HOK, creators of LaGuardia’s Airport Central Terminal B in New York and the Barclays world headquarters in London. Design awards and global news coverage followed.