India's Real Estate King

Kushal Pal Singh talks about the opening of his country's economy, how he put together his holdings, and what he learned from Jack Welch

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July 5, 2006 at 4:00 AM UTC

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India's Gurgaon is the world's call-center hub. The newly built township, a short drive from New Delhi's airport and just 28 miles from the city center, looks like Shanghai in the 1990s—a hive of construction activity, complete with tall cranes, wide dusty roads, half-built overpasses, and swish buildings (see BusinessWeek, 7/10/06, "DLF: The Making Of A Global Real Estate Giant").

Kushal Pal Singh, 74, a former army officer and chairman of developer DLF Ltd. dominates Gurgaon—DLF controls 3,000 acres or about 25% of the township. Singh bought the land over years, painstakingly, patch by patch, and now it's India's showpiece. Bombay Bureau Chief Manjeet Kripalani spoke to India's real estate king in his office in New Delhi about his views on India and his entrepreneurial efforts. Following are edited excerpts from the interview.