Real estate doyen Kushal Pal Singh on Thursday, February 23, suggested that the Indian government should acquire land for private developers to develop townships, as now, it's impossible for them to get real estate in the country.
Speaking exclusively to CNBC-TV18's Shereen Bhan, Singh said India must change its master plan, otherwise, the country will never be able to achieve its true economic potential.
The 91-year-old Singh, who left an army job in 1961 to join DLF — a company started by his father-in-law in 1946 — retired as the company's chairman in 2020.
He said the master plan composition must be done by visionary people and developers, not by (very good and competent) bureaucrats as they get transferred every time, due to which they are unable to develop a vision in a few years.
Singh said India is failing miserably at urbanisation and the Indian government can never build another Gurgaon, a planned city in Haryana. He transformed Delhi Land & Finance Ltd (DLF) into India's biggest listed property firm.
He had wanted to transform Gurgaon into a Singapore-like satellite city of New Delhi and attract international companies to establish operations there. He acquired 3,500 acres around Gurgaon, now renamed Gurugram, to build DLF City, his flagship township.
The DLF patriarch said the government can acquire land for highway infrastructure but not for townships. So, if the government is not fully empowered to acquire land and auction it out, there will be no more townships in India. He said the development of townships should be done by the private sector through partnerships.
A science graduate from Meerut College, Singh studied engineering in the United Kingdom and then served as an officer in an elite cavalry regiment in the Indian Army. He left the military to join his father-in-law, entrepreneur Chaudhary Raghvendra Singh's firm, DLF.
He said master-planning is still being done with myopic wisdom not based on real thinking. Singh suggested that India should build bigger roads like highways. However, this can be achieved when there's a direction from the central and the state governments acting together.
He said with India's growing population, there will be massive migration from rural areas, which will create traffic blocks, and when you start widening the roads, you have to demolish the buildings and that is impossible.
Under his leadership, DLF expanded beyond Gurgaon, building apartments, shopping malls, and hotels. In 2007, he oversaw DLF's much-anticipated initial public offering, which raised Rs 9,188 crore through the sale of 17.5 crore shares. Singh, with members of his immediate family, maintains a controlling interest in DLF.
