Mohamed Ghouse
Mohamed Ghouse
A bussinessman vs Social Worker developed a wide circle of friends and acquaintances
- G.Raghavan
Mr. Mohammed Ghouse hails from Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, was born in a middle class family and his father was working in Tamil Nadu Government Service as a Librarian. Ghouse completed his B.A.(History) from New College, Chennai in the year 1984. He worked at many places in India including Chennai, Hyderabad and Bombay.
In 1986 he took training in constructing and maintaining swimming pools from a well experienced instructor Pools India Pvt Ltd. at Bangalore. He came to Kuwait in 1986 as a swimming pool technician in a reputed company. After many years of service with them he left them in 2001 to join a Japanese company as a coordinator. He is still working there currently.
He was married and has two children - one girl Shrook Fatima and one boy Mishal. His younger brother Mr. Mohamed Hanif came to Kuwait in the year 1995. and is currently working in a Media company in Kuwait.
Due to the nature of his work which involves site visits and interactions with other technicians, Ghouse had developed a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. He found that one of the common dreams of most such people is to earn sufficient money and own a house in India. Unfortunately,sincethey are all from low or middle income groups,they do not ever have the total amount required to buy properties.
The little that they can save from their monthly income gets spent in many other non-essentials. When they finally accumulate some money for a plot that they desire to buy,they find that the real estate prices have already increased beyond their savings. Hence their dreams stay unfulfilled. Also the hassle of individually negotiating with seller, preparing and registering the documents with registrars are time consuming activities beyond the scope of a normal low or middle income employee in Kuwait who goes to India on a month’ vacation at most.
Mr. Ghouse felt that such people needed a scheme by which they could be encouraged to save small amounts of money regularly over a longer time frame and use it to buy a plot in areas near their village or town in India. The projects should ensure that cost escalations do not affect the buyers and the legal document preparation hassles are eliminated.
With this aim, Mr. Ghouse formed ‘VELLDON REAL PROMOTORS’ in 2012 with the help of his brother MohamedHanif and three more colleagues. They acquired a large tract of land in Mailam, Tindivanam, Tamil Nadu and developed it into suitable plots of around 1200 sq.ft. each.
For their first project, they canvassed and found 60 persons in Kuwait who were willing to buy such plots. These were enrolled in a scheme through which by paying a very small amount - sometimes as little as 15 KD for a period of 30 months they could become the proud owners of one of the plots. This project is now nearly complete and many have successfully completed the payments and registered the plots in their names thus realizing their life-long dreams.
The success of the first project has paved the way for many more projects and currently VELLDON has 5 ongoing projects in Mailam, Vikravandi, Pondicherry, Veppur, Ranipet. Mr. Mohamed Abbas, a cousin of Mr. Ghouse is coordinating the activities in India for VELLDON. Since the projects involve a fixed payment from the buyers, they do not need to worry about cost escalation even if the real estate prices in India increase.
More than 1000 members have been enrolled in these projects mostly through word of mouth publicity from satisfied customers making VELLDON the most popular real estate company in Kuwait. Since the projects are currently in Tamil Nadu, VELLDON is today well known amongst the Tamil speaking community in Kuwait.MrGhouse hopes to cover all the districts of Tamil Nadu in the near future.
In order to ensure confidence of the members and ensure camaraderie amongst them, VELLDON hosts monthly meetings of the members providing them snacks and dinner. During these meetings, the members get a chance to meet and discuss common issues. After all, since they already have chosen specific plots desired by them, they already know who their neighbors are going to be when they return to India and settle down with their families. These meetings also give them a chance to bring their acquaintances who might like to know more about the projects.
Mr. Ghouse runs a charitable society named ‘VELLDON MAKKALNALAMANTRAM’ for the welfare of the public. During his college days, as part of a team from New college, he visited Bhopal at the time of Bhopal Gas tragedy to help the affected people. He still remembers with horror the extent to which they suffered. He says he had vowed to help such victims of disasters to the best extent that he can. Even during the recent rain floods in Tamil Nadu, Cuddalore was one of the worst affected areas. Mr. Ghouse went to Cuddalore to distribute food and clothes to the affected people. Children were even provided with new readymade garments to wear. In addition, Mr.Ghouse and VELLDON are routine sponsors of activities of many Tamil Associations in Kuwait. Mr. Ghouse also publishes a magazine called ‘Kuwait Inbathamizh Monthly’ ( Free issues).
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