Samaritan of Realty

Kumar Urban Development Ltd

Mr. Lalit Kumar Jain, Chairman and Managing Director

Realty became an opportunity canvas for Mr. Lalit Kumar Jain, Chairman and Managing Director, Kumar Urban Development Ltd. and Chairman, CREDAI to make a mark in business and espousing social work. In an exclusive interaction with Built Expressions, Mr. Jain takes us through his cherished journey.

In the first few minutes of interaction you will realize that dedication to work and considerate to people around him are his second nature. What shaped Mr. Lalit Kumar Jain's allures was his exposure to real estate business at a tender age of 15 and his school education in rural region. Now, he is a chairman of Kumar Urban Development Ltd. (KUL) that has over four decades of bequest in real estate business. He has ascribed in a whole heap to what KUL is today. The firm has found a strong resonance across sectors comprising infrastructure, SEZs, townships, large housing and commercial spaces in Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore.   

Kumar Kruti, Pune

Mr. Jain cherishes his business journey and says, "Yes, we have grown from single building project to large housing complexes. We can claim credit of building Pune's first retail mall, first Information Technology building, first industrial complex and largest whole sale market." Currently, KUL is focusing on large townships with minimum 10million sq. ft. build up area in Pune and larger redevelopment projects in Mumbai. The company has 50 Forthcoming Projects with 73.13 million sq. ft. of developable area and estimated 64.14 million sq. ft. of saleable area. KUL has properties for projects in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Nagpur too. "Going ahead, we have large approved projects to work on. From a present offering of 2million sq. ft. built up area per annum, we aim to reach an echelon of offering 5million sq. ft. per annum by 2016," he states.

Mr. Jain believes in giving back to the society and environment that have earned him reputation and wealth. Recollecting his school days in Maharashtra Rashtra Basha Sabha Hindi High School in rural area of Pune, he says, "Despite being in the pastoral region, our school’s discipline and appropriate teaching helped us to obtain good academic and moral education, which is essential in molding individuality among children. Even today, the same format is crucial and hence, wherever we develop our projects, totally we aid education especially in rural areas."

His firm stresses on using natural resources to the maximum in all their projects thus contributing to green aspect. Under its CSR umbrella, KUL has taken up scores of projects including solar energy, expanding green belt, health checkups for labourers, construction of environment parks, plant drip irrigation system. In one of KUL's upcoming projects, an absolute prominence has been allotted to slum development. Very central and large development at Karve Road in Pune will have unique distinction of providing two bed room homes to slum dwellers with unique self employment facilities with amenities which will make the redevelopment a role model in the country. This project will have monumental buildings becoming talk of town and will set standard of architecture in Pune. He is gung-ho about some his upcoming projects The Township at Hinjewadi will boast of 'made for all age groups and for all philosophies and comforts', township at Kharadi  emphasizes on overall development and comfort of residents.  The High rise project at Tardeo would have best of the views of east-west, north and South. The large project at Santacruz will be the most environment friendly project while, the project at Worli will be a boutique living.

CREDAI as catalyst for upbeat change

As a commitment towards making a difference to the real estate fraternity, Mr. Jain was a part of several realty associations. He was actively involved in forming the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (CREDAI) in 1999. It is an apex body for private real estate developers in India. It is recognized as the voice of India's real estate industry, CREDAI strives hard to make the industry more organized and progressive by networking closely with government representatives, policy makers, investors, consumers and real estate professionals. It puts a thrust on the vision of 'Mission Transparency' that aims to eradicate the malice of corruption from the ranks of the real estate sector.

Kumar Sublime, Pune

He was one of the avant-gardes in bringing National Housing Policy that was passed in 1998, which gave booster to develop IT parks and housing projects in the country. Mr. Jain, says, "Welfare of realtors and consumers is our continuous motto. Currently, the sector is crippled with administrative delays and these delays have put government, corporate, developers in problem. The entire system is marred by weakness in governance, which should be tackled by creating awareness and dispose cases faster. We are expecting situations to improve after elections."  "We at CREDAI have been relentlessly battling on all fronts for a transparency in all deals, yawning gap between demand and supply. We have campaigning for all-round reforms especially administrative, land, fiscal, tax and banking reforms as those reforms will boost GDP growth, ensure Transparency in clearances of housing projects and provide homes to all," he further adds.

CREDAI has been fighting to bring single window clearance to eliminate human interface that breeds corruption and make funds available to both developers and buyers at reasonable and affordable rates of interest. The reforms must also include provisions to punish officials who are either corrupt or just sit on files to draw a vicarious by inordinately delaying proposals from developers. For instance, the environment departments cause green terror by not approving proposals for months and years.

"We at CREDAI have taken up intense Skill Development program through funding, providing special incentive to training and research institutes. CREDAI Governing Council board has resolved to take up rain water harvesting as the prime CSR Activity," he states.

With a vision to make India a housing surplus nation from being the housing shortage country, CREDAI has been campaigning to make the business environment congenial for growth. But the realty bill, in its current form and shape, stifles the honest developer and scares away new entrepreneurs from entering the sector.

Points to ponder in realty

COUTURE Podium

Realty sector like any other business has huge risk factors too. Most importantly, it is risk of human behaviour and threats of uncertainty arising out of it. The scenario is uncertain as real estate is a cyclical market. Unlike foreign markets, India is not mature enough to address current challenges. Inflation level is also too volatile that influences the real estate market. Commenting on realty being unorganized, he hints that once the professionalism comes into it, situations will be positive. Slow shifting from labour intensive situation to mechanization, non-transparency and licensing problems are blighting the growth of real estate, he informs. Developers learn their way through but mostly suffer due to newer creative obstructions created by the authoritative.

Nirvana Hills, Pune

Commenting further on the current turbulent situation of the market, Mr. Jain says, "The real estate market has been experiencing slowdown for last 2 to 3 years. 2013 has been the worst since the last 2 decades in terms of growth, sales and governance (approval process). The first 3 weeks in December showed better sales than the previous month. This is an indication that interest rate reduction and realization that costs have gone very high thereby very little possibility to reduce sales price. This with the pent up demand will result in better performance in the coming year. Political uncertainty is already discounted by the market but if there is a stable government post elections, then there is all the possibility of market getting into a very vibrant and upbeat mood.

Integrated township, a new buzzword

Courture Podium

Integrated township is the new buzzword with realtors planning huge investments in projects that would reduce pressure on city infrastructure and bring in crores of investment into the housing sector. More than a dozen such townships have been launched in recent months and as many are in the approval stage. "We plan to develop integrated townships on areas upward of 100 acres of land. Integrated townships offer a complete solution of living to home, which is a hit factor," he adds.

To wrap up, Mr. Jain is gallant to be operating in a sector like real estate as it touches so many lives hence, he believes in doing this business with care and enjoyment. 

Box item: Feats of Mr. Jain

Mr. Lalit Kumar Jain holds a degree in civil engineering from Dnyeshwar Vidyapeeth, Pune. He is the winner of Man of the year in the year 2008 by Accommodation Times, Rashtriya Udyog Samman Puraskar for individual achievements in economic development in 2006, Pune Ratna Award for contribution in social and business field, 2006 and Nirman Bharti Rashtriya Samman), 2006. He was the first convener of national convention of CREDAI at Vigyan Bhawan, Delhi and "Advantage Maharashtra" State Convention. He has been active on various forums of real estate developers and has been invited to speak on various national and international forums and universities as an expert in real estate.