India's government will buy up to Rs1 billion ($20 million) worth of flats from real estate firm Emaar MGF Land, the Business Standard newspaper reported on Sunday, citing a senior ministry official.

Emaar MGF, a joint venture between Dubai's Emaar Properties and India's MGF Developments Ltd is developing the Commonwealth Games village project to be held in 2010 in New Delhi, and planned to use proceeds from selling these flats to finance the construction, the paper said.

M. Ramchandran, secretary at the Ministry of Urban Development, has asked the Delhi Development Authority to examine the possibility of allowing it to buy flats to provide liquidity support to the firm, the paper reported.

The amount is a third of what the real-estate firm initially sought, and a committee set up by the ministry is analysing the actual price of the flats, the paper said, citing Ramchandran. An Emaar-MGF spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.-Reuters