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DSK Dream City: Living a dream

DSK Dream City will be a unique township by 2022, offering a stress-free lifestyle for its residents

Driving along National Highway 9 (which links Pune to Hyderabad), one comes across lush sugarcane and grape farms on both sides of the busy artery, just a few kilometres out of Pune. But less than 20 km from the heart of the city, you come across a sprawling self-contained township being developed on a 300-acre plot of land.
DSK Dream City is the flagship project of the multi-billion-rupee, multi-product and multi-sector conglomerate, the DSK Group.

D S Kulkarni, Entrepreneur
D S Kulkarni, the self-made entrepreneur, who started off in a small way in Pune, is today heading an empire that spans across sectors including construction, automobiles, education, energy, entertainment, travel and hospitality.
The group has operations in Pune, Mumbai, Nashik, Bengaluru, Chennai and even in the US.
Says Kulkarni: "We believe in giving customers the best of service in whatever sector we operate in." Referring to DSK Dream City, Kulkarni notes that it will be a unique township by the time it is completed by 2022. The township will include 10,000 apartments (with some buildings soaring 50 floors high), providing homes to 50,000 people.
It will also feature IT and software parks, five-star hotels, shopping malls, a convention centre and multiplex theatres. More importantly, it will have facilities for 36 sports, including 24 Olympic events. There will be nine sports academies, including one in partnership with the Liverpool Football Club.
"We are also laying emphasis on education," explains Kulkarni. The township already includes three major colleges that provide education in animation, game and product designing. "Next year, we plan to set up our own private university," he adds. To provide job opportunities for youngsters who have not pursued higher education, he is also setting up an academy, which will train the youth in not just fire-fighting techniques, but also disaster management.
DSK Dream City will offer a stress-free lifestyle for its residents. While residents can bring their cars inside the complex, all others will have to travel by trams, boats, or cycles. Buses will take residents to Pune city and other suburbs. Six-lane internal roads will also criss-cross the township.
A manmade river will wind its way around the township. "We are deploying new technology that would ensure the water is odour-free and does not encourage breeding by mosquitoes," says Kulkarni.
Most of the technology deployed at DSK Dream City would ensure it would be as advanced as the proposed 100 'smart cities' being planned by the Indian government.
The project would also not burden the civic authorities in Pune by drawing on water supply, using electricity from the grid, dumping garbage or discharging sewage into the city's drainage system. "It will be a sustainable city," says Kulkarni. "We have plasma technology for disposing of garbage, the sewage treatment plant will purify the waste water and will be used to water the gardens."
Similarly, the group is putting up a 100 MW solar power project in Madhya Pradesh. Electricity would be sold to the national grid, and the 70 MW required by DSK Dream City would be drawn from the grid, he adds.
Importantly, the DSK group will be involved in managing the project even after possession is given to the residents.
Unlike in other housing colonies, it will not be run by a society comprising members - who are generally part-timers - but will be managed by a professional company.
Kulkarni says the response from customers has been very good. "About 65 per cent of my clients are NRIs, mainly from the US and the UAE," he points out. And to cater to the needs of some of his US-based clients, he is promoting three projects in New Jersey.
He also refers to another project in Pune, DSK Vishwa Villa, which features 3 BHK ready-made bungalows, each spread over a 5,000 square feet plot. The project is located on a 110-acre elevated plateau on the western side of the city along Singhad road, and features all modern amenities.
Referring to other businesses of the group, Kulkarni notes that he is among the largest Toyota dealers in India and has been winning awards successively for several years.
"We have one of the largest Toyota showrooms, spread over 260,000 square feet in Pune," he says. The DSK group operates a dozen Toyota showrooms and six workshops in eight districts of Maharashtra.
The group has also tied up with Hyosung, a South Korean superbike brand, and Benelli, an Italian superbike producer. It has an assembly plant at Wai near Pune.
Recently, when the company launched the Benelli superbikes in Bengaluru, it received an overwhelming response, with a 100 vehicles being sold in just one month.