Overview
Sushil Mohta is a prominent Indian real estate entrepreneur, best known as the Founder and Chairman of the Merlin Group, one of eastern India’s most established real estate development companies. Headquartered in Kolkata, the group he built over four decades has grown into a diversified conglomerate spanning residential housing, commercial complexes, shopping malls, IT parks, hospitality, and township development, with a footprint across several Indian states and an international presence in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Early Life and Background
Sushil Mohta was born into a Marwari business family in Kolkata. His father, the late Shiv Kishan Mohta, ran the family’s ball-bearing trading business, and Mohta has often credited his father, alongside figures such as J. R. D. Tata, Swami Vivekananda, and Lee Iacocca, as an early source of inspiration. He completed his schooling at St. Xavier’s Collegiate School in Kolkata and, following the custom of many Marwari business families of his generation, joined the family trading business in his teenage years, where he gained his first grounding in commerce and people management.
Entry into Real Estate
Although the Mohta family’s traditional business was ball bearings, Sushil Mohta charted a different course. In his twenties, business travel to Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore exposed him to the region’s rapid urban development and modern high-rise construction, and he grew drawn to the idea of building something tangible rather than continuing purely in trading and investment. This experience led him to explore construction and real estate at a time when the sector in India was still dominated by small, unorganised players.
By the mid-1980s he had gained several years of hands-on experience in the property business, and around 1990 he struck out on his own, founding Merlin Projects Ltd. The company’s first residential project was a roughly 60,000-square-foot development in Hazra, a prime South Kolkata locality. Operating in a market that was largely informal at the time, Mohta built the business on corporate principles and professional practices, a choice that helped Merlin stand apart and gradually become one of the more recognised developer brands in the region.
Building the Merlin Group
Under Sushil Mohta’s leadership, Merlin Group expanded steadily across residential, commercial, retail, and hospitality segments. Its portfolio includes premium and essential housing, country homes and independent bungalows, office and IT buildings, specialty malls such as Homeland Mall, and mixed-use developments such as the Acropolis complex, which includes the Geetanjali cricket stadium. Merlin has also been a key partner in South City, one of Kolkata’s landmark township developments, and extended the South City brand internationally with South City Altair in Colombo, Sri Lanka, an iconic tower designed by architect Moshe Safdie, best known for Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
Over four decades, the group has been credited with delivering more than 50 residential and commercial complexes and several hundred independent bungalows, covering upward of 20 million square feet of development, with a presence across Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Raipur, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Colombo. Mohta has also served on the boards of major Kolkata retail assets, including South City Mall and Acropolis Mall, and has held a director’s role with the South City Group of Companies.
Recent Expansion
In 2023, Merlin Group entered into an agreement with the World Trade Centers Association to develop the World Trade Center Kolkata, a proposed 3.5-million-square-foot commercial project representing an investment of around Rs 1,500 crore, with the licence agreement signed by Sushil Mohta as Chairman alongside his son and Managing Director, Saket Mohta. More recently, the group has outlined plans to nearly double its revenue over seven to eight years on the back of roughly 40 million square feet of real estate under active development across Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, and Navi Mumbai, with an estimated Rs 20,000 crore in projected sales value, alongside a growing push into hospitality.
Industry Leadership and Public Role
Beyond his own company, Sushil Mohta has played a significant role in shaping the real estate industry’s institutional voice in eastern India. He is a founder member of CREDAI (the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India) and has served as President of CREDAI West Bengal, the apex body representing private developers in the state. In this capacity, he has contributed to policy discussions with the West Bengal government on issues such as urban land ceiling laws, land-use planning, approval timelines, and affordable housing, and has been a vocal advocate for reforms intended to make housing more accessible, including simplification of approval processes and rationalisation of stamp duty and related charges.
He has also been involved in studying housing and urban development practices in other countries, examining shifts in consumer preferences and modern approaches to condominium planning, shopping mall design, and construction techniques, insights he has sought to apply to Merlin’s own projects in India.
Family
Sushil Mohta comes from a Marwari business family in Kolkata. The table below covers the family and leadership details confirmed for this biography.
| Name | Relation | Notes |
| Late Shiv Kishan Mohta | Father | Ran the family’s original ball-bearing trading business in Kolkata; Sushil Mohta has cited him as a formative influence and inspiration for entering business. |
| Seema Mohta | Wife | |
| Saket Mohta | Son | Managing Director & CEO of Merlin Group; co-signed the World Trade Center Kolkata licence agreement alongside Sushil Mohta in 2023 and represents the group in current business announcements, including the group’s recent expansion plans. |
Recognition
Merlin Group’s work under Sushil Mohta’s chairmanship has been recognised with industry honours over the years, including awards from The Economic Times and CREDAI Bengal’s realty awards, reflecting the group’s standing as one of the more established real estate brands in the eastern Indian market.
Business Philosophy
Sushil Mohta has spoken of treating customers “like kings,” given that homebuyers are typically investing their life savings, and of building emotional connections with customers as a guiding principle for the business. He has pointed to Merlin’s early adoption of a company website in 1997, along with direct marketing and dedicated customer service and after-sales functions, as differentiators that helped build the brand’s recall in a market once dominated by unorganised players. He remains closely tied to Kolkata, describing it as his home and “comfort zone” even as Merlin’s operations have expanded across India and into Sri Lanka.
Key Facts
- Full name: Sushil Kumar Mohta
- Position: Founder & Chairman, Merlin Group
- Industry: Real estate development, commercial and hospitality assets
- Headquarters: Kolkata, West Bengal, India
- Company founded: Mid-1980s (Merlin Projects Ltd.)
- Other roles: Director, South City Group of Companies; Board member, South City Mall and Acropolis Mall
- Industry associations: Founder member, CREDAI; President, CREDAI West Bengal
- Geographic footprint: Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Raipur, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Colombo (Sri Lanka)
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