Anita Arjundas, 

It’s been a bad year for realty: high interest rates, depressed customer sentiment, regulatory hurdles, and shrinking capital. Yet, for Arjundas’s Lifespaces, returns have outperformed the BSE’s realty index, FY12 revenue has grown 16% to Rs 734 crore, and profits have risen 10%. Arjundas has also bought the company’s first land parcel for the start of new business in affordable housing. That wasn’t easy. “We must have seen some 150 land parcels before we zoned in on the first one and shortlisted a second. There were moments when I wondered whether we would ever be able to enter this space given the challenges around land,” she says.