Age may be just a number, but for KP Singh, Founder of DLF, it’s also a testament to a life lived on his own terms. At 95, Singh is a living embodiment of the idea that age is merely a state of mind.
With a legacy that has shaped India’s real estate landscape and significantly influenced the country’s economy, Singh’s journey is nothing short of remarkable.
Speaking with CNBC-TV18 about his book titled “Why The Heck Not?” KP Singh, Chairman Emeritus of DLF, shares his blueprint for success—not just in business, but in life itself.
Below are the excerpts of the interview.
Q: Why the decision to title your book which in your words is a blueprint of your template for success – you call it “Why The Heck Not?” Is it the mantra for your life story?
Singh: In my life whenever an opportunity came, I did not let it go. Of course god has given me one gift which is my mind and it is like a supercomputer. I analyse what do I lose, what do I gain. Importantly, if I do quickly think I would gain more and may lose little, so I don’t let it go. I believe every opportunity is like a train standing on a platform. The train’s door opens for a short while, either you get in or when the door closes the train leaves. Opportunity comes to every human being, it is your smartness how to quickly find out yes or no and then grab it before somebody else grabs it.
My life is full of it. Can you imagine, as a real estate man, I have got nothing to do with gas pipelines or completely hi-tech compressors from there I got onto GE which is the most hi-tech company in the world. Whenever an opportunity came, I grabbed it and I succeeded.
Therefore I say, why the heck not? Every person should know when opportunity comes, just one thing, why the heck not? Why should I get it? If you find you can’t do it or you find you will lose more, then let it go. But first try optimistically, that why not grab it?
Q: Let’s talk about the big opportunity that you decided to grab – reviving DLF, which was essentially a company that was being run by your father-in-law. And it was on the behest of your wife and your sister-in-law that you decided that you wanted to be part of this company. Cut to late 1970s to 1980s, where you then decided that you wanted to build a future city for India. Take me back to that time where you had this conversation under a kikar tree with the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi where really you discussed the idea of Gurgaon?
Singh: It started from a different aspect altogether. I got accidentally involved into real estate. Earlier I was doing manufacturing business and having a nice time. But then the events came such that my late wife and sister who were having controlling interest in the name, the company was dormant, completely closed because of 1958 policy of the government which nationalised the business of urban land development.
My father-in-law was a very, very upright man. He said if the government nationalised, let us get out of it. But the others which we call the unauthorised developers, fly by night operators got into it and started developing unauthorised building. So you find all slums everything consequent to that decision. DLF was not part of it.
But when it came to 1973-1974 when her father wanted to give the shares away, she said we will follow, but we are known as DLF’s girls, so they asked me. I said are you asking me something? I know nothing, I don’t know ABC of real estate. I know about manufacturing of battery or electrical motor but nothing about real estate. So some events happened and one sentence which my sister-in-law put it to me, she said, I know it is a formidable task because government is nationalising, banks are forbidden to loan. And the most difficult thing is how do you buy land? You can buy 5 acre, 10 acre, 20 or maybe 100 acre, but when you are talking of a city, you’re talking of thousands of acres and land is fragmented into feudal families. So it was like an impossible task. So she said yes impossible maybe, but if I know you, even if you don’t know swimming, you jump in the sea and we can assure you if you don’t come back, we will not mourn for you. Please for our sake, make an attempt. That was like my back was against the wall.
Can you imagine? How do you lobby with the government to change their policy of completely closed to private sector, only public sector could do urban land development, it was a herculean task, but for me this was a god given gift. I said what other thought that’s impossible, I said I will attempt to make it possible and that started my story of getting into DLF. Then I left everything completely. I left playing Polo, everything I left in my life. I was a one task man. How do I get my task completed?
Q: And you dedicated 20 years of your life from morning to night on acquiring that land. And that I think has many interesting insights about that land acquisition process that you pulled through together. As you said, it was virtually impossible to get contiguous land in the country. But let’s start by talking about that experience. I know you narrate that period very clearly in your book where you would drive out at midnight after leaving a nightclub and then be on the road reaching out to farmers, talking to farmers. And you say very clearly, I think that’s a very interesting aspect in the book that you need to understand people and know their stories to be able to transact with them. Explain to me how you went about this?
Singh: Before you do any business it may look like very nice, it’s like a jersey cow. It looks brown on one side but go the other side it is spotted. So you cannot take decision of business unless you see 360 review and review with a negative attitude. Where can we fail? So that teaching was ingrained in me. So I came around that I cannot buy land unless I create a confidence in them that I am one of them and one of the part of their family.
So there was an incident which I think made DLF. Otherwise if I had not taken that decision, DLF would never exist. In 1976 a new law came and I was just learning the rope of DLF. The new law came to India called Urban Land Ceiling Act and that meant that any entity who owns more than 500 yards of vacant land, that will revert to the government free of cost, which is one of the most wrong laws, draconian law, there was hue and cry. But the most affected person was DLF and its customers. Because ever since after independence we started, the thing was you gave plots to these people so that they had property. It was only ₹5 a yard or ₹10 a yard, so the whole 500 yards was ₹5,000. But for these guys the title was not passed over in majority cases. They revert to the name of the company and they revert to the government. So what were they asking? They were saying please refund our money. Small money ₹5,000, but the total money was ₹1.5 crore. But DLF had no money because DLF had closed its business completely. So since I am very detailed man I said let me read this law myself. I called the company secretary he showed it to me, it was only 30 pages law. So I read it and I found one para – which had one provision. It said if any provision of this law brings hardship to a common man, then by notification government could exempt it. I caught that point.
I went to NJ Kamath. He was Secretary of urban development and said poor people have paid 20 or 30 years back, their property is going now and reverting. He said, you have a point, but this law is directly dictated by the Prime Minister but I see your point. So I said, sir, if you were them, what would you feel? Is it not a hardship to to a common man? He said yes. So he went to cabinet secretary and this and that and finally the government said that this is a hardship problem.
When this news was given to me I stupidly – because I was supposed to keep it confidential – what I did was I came back to my office and stupidly I just said there’s a good news possibly. So they said at this time then borrow money and return it because if this comes in you will be a billionaire because all the land comes to you. So I said it is not sinking in me. So they said why it is not sinking? I said it is to my knowledge now. So they said you were better in army only, why you came in this field. You should have become Mahatma Gandhi or a priest. This is business. So I said to them, I will do business but with my ethics. At that time my father-in-law said you are running it, so take a decision. I said my decision is I will make them millionaire first, then they will make me a billionaire. And that is exactly what happened.
Moral of the story is, I decided that the ethics and morality of a businessman should be always, always the keystone of the policy and should never be deflected for greed for making money by cutting corners.
Now that thing when it happened, thousands of farmers who had forgotten they had property, they became millionaires and they are all married, they are interconnected in Gurgaon and thereafter it is an old story. Banks were flooded with the money. We were not short of money and till that time we had no money.
Watch accompanying video for entire conversation.
Source : CNBCTV18