| Something that has seen K Ravinder Reddy, the chairman and managing director of Janapriya Engineers Syndicate Limited, achieve remarkable success in the two decades since he started his construction company. |
| Reddy, who had a job with state irrigation department, left the comfort of government job behind to fulfil his desire to be creative and entreuprenuerial. "During my five-year stint with the irrigation department there was not much scope for me to showcase my individual capabilities. So I left the job to do something all by myself," he says. |
| According to Reddy, while all the necessary ingredients were pretty freely available, the challenge was integrating them. "Those days there was good land available, raw materials were also available and the manpower in terms of engineers and labour was also there but the problem was in assembling all these in a sequence." |
| His first project kicked off in 1982, where he sold 527 plots on the Nagarjuna Sagar road in three months. "The total land available was 50 acres and we marked out the plots and sold them in under three months which gave me the confidence that I could do well in this business," he recalls. |
| The company's first construction project was in Saroornagar in 1985. "The Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (Huda) sold 48 plots which were exclusively for apartments. I bought two plots there and constructed 80 flats," he said. |
| According to the norms at that time, a builder had to pay 15 per cent of the total cost which Reddy managed to gather but for the balance which had to be paid he had no resources. "I was lucky that in one month all the flats were booked and I had enough capital to pay of the remaining amount and also capital to start new projects," he said. |
| Reddy says his favourite and most challenging project that he did so far was constructing 700 flats in Miyapur on the outskirts of the city. |
| "This project started in 1988-89 and when I told my friends and close associated my plans they ridiculed me as the area I chose was very far from the city. But my conscience said that my project would succeed and it did, which gave me a lot of pleasure," he said. |
| Janapriya has so far constructed around 18,000 dwelling units "" multi-storeyed flats and independent house "" in Hyderabad and Bangalore. "The company's first construction outside Hyderabad was in Bangalore in 1996. My plan is to expand the business to the major cities," Reddy says. |
| His vision is to see to that the company constructs close to 50,000 units in the next decade. And a step in this direction according to Reddy is to replicate what the company has done in the last two decades in the next two years. |
| The company which has a turnover of Rs 250 crore for the last financial year is poised for growth. "We have grown by around Rs 45 crore year-on-year in the last couple of years and this year also we expect the same," he says. |
| Janapriya has also started work on its first commercial complex in the city, Fortune 9. According to Reddy, the Rs 100-crore project would be completed by June 2005. The group is also taking up a similar project at Hoodi Circle in Bangalore at a cost of Rs 50 crore. |
| Reddy also said that the company would be constructing independent duplex houses and luxury flats near Sainikpuri in Hyderabad and at Manisankari in Bangalore at a cost of Rs 175 crore each. Janapriya is also planning to start construction of a residential township in Mumbai. |
| In his free time, he likes to discuss new ideas and projects with his family and friends. "Apart from this, I also like to spend time with my wife and two sons. My wife is also the financial director in the company and guides me with my daily activities," he said. |
| Reddy also thinks that his elder son Kranti Kiran Reddy, who has recently come back from the US after finishing his Masters in construction activities and joined the company as an executive director, will give fresh ideas and help chart the growth path for the company in the future. |
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