Please introduce Maitreya Group to our readers, its various business verticals, and vision. How eventful has the company's journey been so far to come to the current stature?
Maitreya group was founded by my husband, late Mr Madhusudan Satpalkar who had a dream and passion to provide employment to unemployed youth. Our group's mission revolves around values of true friendship, and aims to empower lives to collectively build value, create wealth, and deliver satisfaction.
Maitreya Group has 10 business verticals, right from plotting to realtors and hospitality industry to publication and mass media. C.S.R. activities are also undertaken by Maitreya foundation. Mr Madhusudan Satpalkar had a strong belief for the upliftment of the society and so since then we have been working relentlessly towards that goal through our Maitreya foundation.
In any business, journey is always eventful...In our case, it was more eventful for many reasons – firstly my late husband, Mr Madhusudan Satpalkar, who founded this group, had vision, and marketing experience but he came from a very middle class background, so neither did he have money nor any godfather. Also, he didn't have any proper business education. But he had a dream to follow for that he struggled a lot. He overcame all the hindrances. His dream started turning into reality, we were all happy to see Maitreya grow at a steady pace. But in 2003, we got a major setback. I lost my husband to a cruel stroke of destiny. Till then, he had started 6-7 business ventures. They were all in nascent stage. And apart from dealing with a big personal loss, I had a challenge to turn his dream of Maitreya into reality.
Till my husband's death I was a mere housewife, who was busy looking after my 5 years old daughter. I didn't have knowledge of any business. I didn't have any business education, I didn't know about markets, but wanted to fulfill my husband's dream. So I took over from where he had left. And eventually, I learnt that strategy of selling is same everywhere. You have to have marketing skills to make business successful. I acted accordingly and a success story by name Maitreya was written. So in all it was a very eventful journey, which has taught me many things.
What is the core competency of your group's business to give customer utmost satisfaction?
High level of commitment, no compromise on quality and trust are the basic business ethics that we follow for customer satisfaction. Timely completion and delivery is the key to our success. At the same time, we keep a track of what is new in every sector that we are in. We adapt to the changes, we go with the new, and most importantly, keeping in view or rather visualizing the problems that may raise their head 10-20 years down the line.
A word about Maitreya Realtors and its notable commercial, residential, and hospitality projects and their USPs.
Maitreya Realtors is a construction arm of Maitreya group of companies. It mainly focuses on construction and real estate development of commercial, residential, retail, and hospitality properties across the state of Maharashtra and neighboring states like Gujarat and Karnataka.
Our notable residential projects are Maitreya Pandav Van, Maitreya Sankul and Maitreya Greens in Nasik, and Maitreya Sunrise in Sangli.
Pandav Van is a bungalow project at the base of Pandav Leni in Nasik, Maitreya Sankul is a 60-flats project for basically middle income group and Maitreya Greens is a township project. This project is the first project in Nashik which has clearance from Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF), pre-recertified Gold rating from IGBC. Maitreya Greens is a Gold Pre-certified Green Building Multi storeyed Residential tower Township having configuration of 2BHK to 4BHK apartments. The project has more than 25% open areas Ample Parking provision and provision of Club House with health club, swimming pool, indoor games, Kids play area, Senior Citizens Park.
The other prestigious project is Maitreya Sunrise in Sangli. The project is located on the main Sangli – Miraj road opposite to Bharti Vidyapeeth. The project is spread over 1.5 acres of land and it comprises of 73 commercial and 62 residential units.
We are also in the plotted development with our projects in Vadodara known as Maitreya Paridiso – we have initially launched 5.00 lac sq.ft area with all modern amenities and of various plot sizes from 800 sq.ft to 3000 sq.ft. Our other upcoming projects in the plotted development are in Bhuj (Kutch) / Vikramgadh Near Manor.
In the residential sector, we are looking to expand in Nagpur and Aurangabad where the projects are in planning stage. In MMR region, we have a high end residential project coming up in Khar and a large scale development in Ghokhivare (Vasai), which are in the approval stage.
Greenness is very much in vogue and has rather become a necessity. But, the cost of building a green structure is high and it pushes the overall project cost upwards, which in turn is passed on to the buyers. How are you synergizing these two aspects?
This is a wrong notion. Though you may find that cost high initially. In long term, it proves to be cost-effective. So, I don't subscribe to such negative publicity. In fact, I think that looking at the future, and keeping in mind the erosion of green cover, we need to turn to green building concept, green architecture for safeguarding our future generations.
A green building is one which uses less water, optimizes energy efficiency, conserves natural resources, generates less waste and provides healthier spaces for occupants, as compared to a conventional building. Essentially it's a matter of calculating the holistic lifecycle cost which for a green building will always be lower.
How do transparency and ethical business practices (right from conceptualization of a project to selling) help builders and end-users?
Transparency and ethical business practices help a lot to both builders as well as customers because they bring an element of trust in their relationship. That is our experience. Right from conceptualization, we follow that. Before getting 7/12, we don't go for planning. Before getting all permissions, we don't move forward. We follow DCR, all rules, so in our case, questions of legal as well as liasioning never arise. We always ensure that we have all the statutory and regulatory compliance in place for each stage of the project.
In the current financial crunch, banks are quite reluctant to finance projects. How are you managing your operations in such a scenario?
We take private funding or support from our group companies.
In your constant endeavor to broaden horizons and excel your selves; is your group planning to spread its wings in other cities or states?
Yes, we have already spread our wings to our neighboring states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka.
How do you see the growth of real estate sector in general and your housing & construction business in particular after the formation of new government? What are your expectations from the govt.?
This government is very new, but I liked their policy of developing small townships on the outskirts of main cities. Houses for poor are a very noble scheme. This policy of developing small city like establishments will ease stress on big cities, especially on their infrastructure. Secondly, developing such small cities means developing infrastructure there. This will utilize land to the maximum and at the same time, will generate employment for many. This will help the economy. Though it is now at planning stage, we will be able to see its coming on ground later. It is Modiji's expertise. If we talk about our company, we have land banks in most of these cities. So we will be active participants in this. And where we don't have land banks, we will enter in J.V. and work on that.
