Today, Gaursons, which primarily constructs in the Ghaziabad region, has sold over 1,200 flats and has a turnover of Rs 18 crore.
Construction has always been a hobby of mine, which is why I decided to become a civil engineer and joined the Indian Railways after graduation.
Working for the Railways was initially challenging as I was building bridges and tunnels. But after 30 years I grew restless. I wanted to do a lot more. Also, I wanted to take my own decisions which is not possible if you are working for a government organisation.
So in 1989, I took early retirement and entered the construction business. I did not have too much money and so took a loan from LIC Housing Finance. I bought a small plot in Ghaziabad, built a few flats and then sold them. The money I got was used to buy another plot.
For six years, I continued to operate on a small scale. Then in 1995, my two sons joined me and we decided to enter construction in a big way. We took a loan from HUDCO and started on our project.
Finance has never really been a problem. Getting a loan is easy both for builders as well as for ordinary people who want to take a home loan to purchase a house. We have a tie-up with several banks including ICICI Bank, UTI Bank, Bank of Baroda etc. If you purchase a house from us, these banks offer you a loan.
So even when the building is in its construction stage around 35 per cent to 40 per cent of the flats gets booked and we receive our payment. Hence, our own investment is reduced drastically.
We have been constructing primarily in Ghaziabad and on the Delhi-Ghaziabad stretch. We have constructed over 22 buildings comprising 1,200 flats since 1995. Before that, I had completed around 10 projects which is around 140 flats.
Our projects include the Gaur Galaxy, Gaur Enclave and Gaur Enclave II, and Gaur Residency. Our current project called Gaur Green City is worth Rs 125 crore.
The chief attraction of this residential complex is that only 32 per cent of the total area is under construction, the remaining left untouched. What