My experience with Shri Lakshmi Builders, Hazratganj, Lucknow.
I was in need to build my house in Jankipuram Extension, for which I was well competent and could put all efforts required. However, I thought that giving it on contract to a builder would help me finish the work faster. I thought contractors have a full-fledged team and it will help the work go at a faster pace without any break-ups in between.
Everybody wants to move to their house ASAP, and why not? When I was looking for builders on internet, I found Shri Lakshmi Builders and several others. After carefully looking into the options, I opted to go for Shri Lakshmi Builders looking at their website, office(B-22, Tez Kumar Plaza, Hazratganj, Lucknow; website: https://slbinfra.com), their promises, and offers.
He agreed to build my house @Rs 1300/sq ft, remember, it is not a cheap price. Well, I signed the contract on 17th April, 2013 and paid him an advance of Rs. 50000 to initiate the work. To my surprise, nothing happened for about 7-10 days, after which they came to start the work only when I forced them to start it.
To dig the basement itself, they took about 10 days. I could have taken the message from here itself, but I thought it is the beginning of the work and they would catch the pace with time. But that never happened till end when they ran away!
Now let me narrate the story as it unfolded in front of my eyes:
1.The contractor never visited the site without my pressure. After my intervention, he visited the site once in a month. They were in no hurry to complete the work, if no work was done for days together, it was a very normal thing for them. You can imagine their speed from the very fact that the site supervisor comes to the site by foot. He would deliver any material required in half a day or even in one to two days. Now-a-days, when everything is just a phone call away, it was always the case that they took 7-10 days to arrange even the simplest things such as iron, cement, bricks etc. And almost every material supplier is now running around my house because his dues have not been paid.
2.Would you believe that preparing the simplest foundation took them 1.5 months, after which they stopped work for about 20 days giving various excuses.
3.When I asked the contractor that treatment of the walls(TARAI in Hindi) is not being done, he picked hammer and hit a brick 3-4 times till the wall was shaken to show me the strength of the wall, is that what you expect from your builder?
4.During my construction tenure, at least 10 different masons(mistri) were changed, you know why? Because no mistri was paid his labor in time and that is why most of them ran away after working for 5-7 days. If ten mistris will handle one house, how the craftsmanship is going to be? After repeated changes in mistris, I promised one mistri that I would pay his labor if the contractor does not, then only my work was taken to the stage it is at today.
5.When it came to the slab level, shuttering was not arranged for one month. After one month, the shuttering work started, which was very poor. Nobody from the builder side checked the quality of the shuttering. When I warned them about the same, they ignored it and I remember he said “inki chat bahut achhi utarti hai, that is why I waited for this shuttering walah for one month”, I wondered if they were that quality conscious people. You would surprise that the shuttering of one of the rooms came down while pouring concrete on it. That took us 8 hours to correct the shuttering and ultimately pour the material on it. In the meantime, shuttering of whole of the house was strengthened to avoid any further mishappenings. Eventually, as expected, after removing shuttering, lot of pits and cracks were visible in the roof. The builder told me that he would get false ceiling done to cover the cracks(obviously only to save his image). He did it half the way and then demanded money for false ceiling as well.
6.When the time to build mumty came, he said that your covered area is coming to be 1600 sq ft, while it was clearly mentioned as 1500 in the contract. Remember, 1500 sq ft covered everything including mumty, but he always looked for opportunities to extract more money for less work. I said I will not pay anything beyond the contract amount, he said in that case we would not build mumty. He stopped work for 7 days and eventually, I had to agree to pay him for 100 sq ft more(comes to be Rs.130, 000).
7.He took Rs. 200, 000 for electricity and water wiring, but when the electricity person came to do the job, he asked me to pay to the electrician. Ultimately, looking at the loss of the electricity person, I paid him Rs.3500 from my pocket. I am sure they haven’t paid to him till now. You may call him and ask(Lakshmi Narayan, 9415574195). The same way the plumber was treated. Nonetheless, there were so many labors, masons and other people like sariya wala, material supplier whose money was not paid.
8.When I paid him almost 90% of the money, he disappeared from the site. I visited his office several times, but he is never available. He does not receive my calls and does not reply to the SMSs sent. Today NOT even plaster work has been completed for my house.
9.Whenever they had to take money, he visited the site, suggested some or other good thing such that I was happy. At the end, he demanded money. As soon as he got money, nobody came to work for next 2-3 days. Every time it happened that they returned to work after a gap and then repeated the same.
10.About 25% of the times it happened that I brought labors and masons for work because their people had run away due to non-payment of labors. It happened that I paid the labor so many times directly to the labors so that they would come to the work the next day.
11.They have no experience of house building. You won’t believe that they commit such gross errors that even a layman can find out. One such thing I would like to tell you is that they forgot to put bathroom pipes in my house. Once the structure was complete, I asked them about the pipe. It was only then that they broke down the wall to fit bathroom pipes. What a poor plan. This is just one instance; I have seen so many such errors.
12.While taking contract of my house, they promised they would use Birla putty, but while doing the work they started with POP and that too they asked me to purchase and they haven’t paid for that till now.
13.They promised me free modular kitchen, and wardrobes if I would construct in 1500 sq ft, which I did. After reading the whole story, you must have understood what happened to my free offer.
14.They write on their website that they have engineer, architect and designers. In fact, they do not have any engineer or architect. If you happen to contact them, please ask for the degree of the engineer and architect.
15.As of today, the things pending for my house are mumty plaster, doors, windows, bathroom fittings, water tank, grills, electricity switches, putty and paint, leveling of terrace, kitchen, wardrobes and many other small things, but the contractor has already run away.
How they ditch their clients:
Everytime you call them to tell that something is going wrong with construction, they will pretend as if they knew it, but believe me; the fault will not be corrected till end. Every corner, every slab, everything that needs working on angles and level will be incorrect in your construction. If you remind that you need to buy something for next job, they will show as if they are well prepared for it, but again they won’t ever do it for you.
For example, when I asked them to buy wood for the house, they told me that they would buy it in advance, soak in water for treatment, dry it then and then use it for preparing the doors. However, when we were actually in need to buy wood, the contractor did not even come, he sent one of his men. But why these promises then; the