CSR means different things to different stakeholders of India Inc. and today there is no reliable rating/valuation methodology to measure CSR standards. Most of the ranking that has been done about the most sustainable corporations is not professionally standardized or uniform.
I often question how will honest journalism survive in this eco system. It is not that I don’t face the challenges and resistance of not being a party to this cartel of corruption. Forget the builders, even a large section of builders’ ‘paid & pet’ journalists have issues with me. I am, after all, a game spoiler for them who is spreading the negativity with brutal honest and ruthless journalism.
Ranging from 50 acre to 850 acre, integrated townships are slowly but surely catching up in Coimbatore and since this part of the property market has so far remained oblivious to the concept of a proper gated living, the developers are leaving no stone unturned to replicate similar success story that other matured property markets across the country have registered.
Ever since I got into the hitherto-untouched & challenging business of brand rating of Indian real estate developers, I only get the reactions in extreme, depending upon whether the developer has been rated high or low. After all, every builder is a God’s gift to the world of brand, as per his own make-belief metrics.
There is also a third set of buyers who buy properties in the second home locations as their first home. They are the buyers who look for locations that would be first home location in the next few years. Of course, the budget constraints force them to look for low-cost housing. Analysts believe this third set of buyers can not be classified as the second home buyers.
When the market sentiments were bullish and foreign investors were testing the Indian realty market, many of the relatively not-so-polished developers started hiring these white collared professionals to negotiate with their global counterparts in a language that they understood. Problem started when this skilled workforce started colouring the vision of the promoter and hence driving the management decisions.
The choice of high profile NRIs in terms of real estate investment is more of emotional urge to come back to the hometown than the locations that are attractive as job magnets. No wonder, more than three-fourth of NRIs, as many as 78 per cent, wish to invest in their hometown.
No one is talking about the need for developing satellite cities, at least as of now. This is not because there is any lack of vision with regards to ever increasing urbanisation, but so much virgin territories are there to be developed that the priority is to develop those pockets first. The load on land has also not reached to an alarming level were the infrastructure crumbles, as witnessed in other major cities across the country.
If the CBD of a given city is losing its sheen, there can be only two diametrically opposite reasons – one, the economy of the city is collapsing and the other is that the city has created many new centers of economic activity.
He came from Kolkata to Bangalore in 1993 to set up the Salarpuria Group’s construction business. But he believes that he was destined to be in this business. The business leader still carries the gratitude to point out that he was fortunate to be mentored by the best professional, Late Mr Salarpuria, in the industry which has goaded him to be where he is today.