New Delhi, March 21 -- For decades, the Indian middle class bought its homes from the government.

In Delhi that meant the Delhi Development Authority (DDA); in Mumbai, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (HMADA). The flats they built were squat, grey, and clumsily proportioned, their concrete infused with bureaucratic indifference.

For most families, there was little alternative.

Kushal Pal Singh looked at this arrangement and saw not inevitability but opportunity.

Born on 15 August 1931 in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, Singh came from a family of landlords and lawyers. After studying at Meerut College and training in aeronautical engineering in Britain, he was commissioned into the Deccan Horse regiment of the Indian...