Sushil Mohta Built a Real Estate Conglomerate in Kolkata That Has Shaped the Skyline of Eastern India for Four Decades
A city's skyline is a record of the people who believed in it. In Kolkata, a significant part of that record carries the signature of one builder, Sushil Mohta.
Some builders leave a legacy that is easy to overlook precisely because it has become part of daily life. Their work is not a monument people travel to see but the apartment complex they live in, the office tower they commute to, the mall where they spend the weekend. Over time, it stops looking like a development and starts looking like the city itself.
Sushil Mohta, Founder and Chairman of Merlin Group, is that kind of builder. Over more than four decades, he has grown a Kolkata start-up into a diversified real estate conglomerate whose work spans housing, retail, offices and hospitality, and that story deserves to be told far more widely than it currently is.
Merlin Group is not a narrow or single-format business. Headquartered in Kolkata and established in 1984, it has developed premium and essential housing, country homes and bungalows, speciality malls, office towers, IT buildings, hotels, clubs and resorts. The group reports more than 50 residential and commercial complexes and some 150 independent bungalows to its name.
The early years were about building credibility in a market that rewarded it slowly. In those first decades, Merlin worked alongside institutions such as the West Bengal Housing Board and South City Projects, and it earned its reputation project by project. Every completed building became a reference for the next one, and the Merlin name began to carry weight with buyers who had little reason to trust a new developer.
A defining chapter began in 2001, when Merlin became a key consortium partner in South City, a mixed-use development of about 4 million square feet. South City became one of Kolkata's best-known addresses, and the group's own account credits it, together with projects such as South City Garden, Belair, Galaxy, Business Park, Infopark and Retreat, with transforming the Kolkata real estate landscape.
The following years brought new formats and new ambitions. Between 2004 and 2010, the group completed two IT parks, Merlin Infinite and Merlin Matrix, as well as the Merlin Acropolis tower with the Geetanjali cricket stadium, along with a modern shopping mall and a premium office tower. These were buildings that changed how the city worked and gathered, and they added to the skyline in a literal sense.
Mohta's involvement with retail has been especially lasting. He is a Partner-Director of South City Group and sits on the boards of two of Kolkata's most prominent malls, South City and Acropolis. For millions of residents these are ordinary destinations, which is exactly what makes them significant: they have become part of how a modern city meets, shops and spends its time.
The next wave of projects spread Merlin's footprint across the city. Between 2015 and 2020, the group developed landmarks including Merlin The 1, Merlin Island, Gangotri, Merlin Verve, 5th Avenue, Merlin Aspire, Merlin Waterfront in Howrah, Merlin Regalia and Merlin Legacy. From the residential lanes of Tollygunge to the riverside of Howrah, Merlin's name now marks neighbourhoods across Kolkata.
The work has not slowed. Recent projects include Merlin Avana in Tollygunge and Merlin Aquaville in Kriparampur, a development of villas and bungalows set along lakes and gardens in South Kolkata. A builder in the fifth decade of his career is still launching new communities, which says something about the conviction behind the company.
Behind every one of those buildings is an enormous amount of unglamorous work. Delivering projects of this size through four decades means navigating land, approvals, financing, contractors and changing buyer expectations, in a market that has tested even the strongest developers. Longevity in this business is not luck. It is the result of thousands of decisions made well and kept consistent.
The group's plans for what comes next remain ambitious. Merlin has reportedly outlined a significant investment programme in Bengal over the coming decade, including Acropolis South in Behala, another mall along BT Road in North Kolkata and a health city in Sodepur with a multi-specialty hospital and a residential township. Those plans suggest a builder still thinking about what the city will need, not only what it already has.
Mohta's legacy also extends beyond his own projects. He is a founder member of CREDAI India, the national apex body of real estate developers, and serves as President of CREDAI West Bengal. In a sector where trust and standards matter enormously, that leadership is an investment in the credibility of the profession as a whole.
It is a legacy that is being carried forward. His son, Saket Mohta, serves as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, leading the group's day-to-day operations and its expansion to Pune, Chennai and beyond. Reportedly, about 40 million square feet are now under development, most of it in Kolkata and the surrounding region.
It is worth pausing to consider what such a body of work represents. Eastern India's business story is too often told through what it has lacked. A skyline built across four decades by a company that began in Kolkata and still builds there is a powerful counterargument, a visible record that serious, long-term private enterprise can take root and grow in the region.
For the next generation of Indian entrepreneurs trying to understand what a lasting legacy looks like, Mohta's story offers something rare. It offers a model built on patience, quality and loyalty to a place, in which success is measured not by a single launch but by what is still standing, and still in use, decades later.
How Sushil Mohta built a real estate conglomerate in Kolkata that has shaped the skyline of Eastern India for four decades is ultimately a story about what happens when a builder treats a city as a long-term commitment. He began with a young company in 1984 and kept building, one project after another, until the city he built for was visibly shaped by his work.
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