V Pratish Devadoss, MD of Rs 900 crore VGN Group, is confident that the worst times are over with demonetisation, Rera Act and GST. He is confident that a mature Chennai market is seeing the start of an upswing now.
He believes the luxury segment has been moving as much as the budget apartments in city limits, as evidenced in over 70 per cent of the VGN Group’s luxury Nungambakkam project getting sold.
The MBA from Cardiff University in Wales has been seeing the Chennai market from close quarters since 2004 as MD of VGN Property Developers as well as VGN Infra. Under his leadership, VGN has built, delivered around 6,500 homes and another 10,000 homes are in the pipeline. Excerpts from an interview with DC.
How do you monitor quality in construction and Timelines?
We have SAP system to monitor all construction processes meticulously, right from procurement of branded materials, quality check at every stage of construction, personally supervised by our engineers on daily basis to ensure quality construction and maintain timelines.
How do you infuse buyer confidence?
We send regular updates to customers on construction progress by e-mail and SMS from on fortnightly basis. Besides, we show them the progress whenever our customers visit our sites. Since, we follow safety and security very strictly, we request customers to visit sites on prior information.
Since, the quality of construction and finishes are seen by the customers at every stage, the customers are confident of our end product. To top it up, more than 50,000 families live in our projects.
Are you expanding to expand to other states?
We are planning to launch more residential, commercial, retail and plotted developments. Overall, there will be around 20 million square feet of mixed developments and 100 acres of plotted developments. Currently, we are not looking at other states for expansion. Maybe, at a later date we may think of expansion.
What would you say is your business ambition?
My ambition is to make sure that every Indian has a home. Housing is a basic necessity and I want to build homes for people.
Are you planning to build Smart homes? Co working spaces in your projects?
The future is affordable homes in outskirts of city and Smart Homes in City. We are contemplating on Smart Homes, Condominiums and also co working spaces in our future commercial projects.
Everything is dependent on market condition and demand.
