New Delhi, May 8 -- India's retail real estate woes deepened in 2023 as the area occupied by ghost shopping centres - malls with over 40 per cent vacant leasable space - surged by a worrying 59 per cent to 13.3 million square feet, leaving a massive Rs 6,700 crore worth of rental space unutilised.

This stark finding was revealed in Knight Frank's annual "Think India Think Retail" report released on Tuesday, which studied 340 malls and 58 high streets across 29 major cities.

The number of such non-performing or ghost shopping centres escalated from 57 in 2022 to 64 last year.

The National Capital Region bore the brunt, housing a staggering 5.3 million sq ft of ghost mall spaces - a 58 per cent spike compared to the previous year.

Finan...