Sushil Kumar Mohta is an Indian real estate developer and businessman based in Kolkata, West Bengal, best known as the Founder and Chairman of the Merlin Group, one of eastern India's most established real estate development companies. Over four decades, he has built Merlin from a single Kolkata-based developer into a multi-city group with residential, commercial, retail, hospitality and township projects across India and an international presence in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He is also a founding member of CREDAI, India's apex real estate developers' body, and has served as President of CREDAI–West Bengal.
Early life
Sushil Mohta was born into a Marwari business family in Kolkata. According to company-linked profile material, his family's original business was in ball bearings, run by his father, whom Mohta has described as a self-made man he idolised growing up. He completed his schooling at St. Xavier's School, Kolkata, and began helping in the family business around age 17, which is where he is said to have gained the foundational business and people-management experience he later applied to real estate a sector his family had no prior background in, and which was not yet a booming market in India at the time he entered it.
Career
Founding Merlin (1984–1990)
Sushil Mohta founded what became Merlin Projects Ltd. in Kolkata, with most sources dating the company's founding to 1984, though some accounts describe the "Merlin" brand itself as having been established around 1990, after Mohta struck out on his own following his early experience in the family business. The group's first projects included commercial buildings such as Marshall House, Kamalaya Building and Vardaan Market, and its first residential developments were in Kolkata's Alipore area early projects that are credited with establishing Merlin's reputation as a quality-focused developer.
Expansion and the South City project (1990s–2000s)
Through the 1990s and 2000s, Merlin expanded its residential portfolio with projects including Merlin Residency, Laurel Garden, and Merlin Daffodil. In 2001, the group became a key consortium partner in South City, a roughly 4-million-square-foot mixed-use township development in Jadavpur, South Kolkata, which went on to include South City Mall developed by South City Projects (Kolkata) Ltd., a company in which Mohta is listed as a director and residential high-rises. South City Mall became one of Kolkata's best-known retail landmarks; in June 2025, it was reported that global investment firm Blackstone acquired South City Mall for approximately ₹3,250 crore, with the mall noted as spanning over 1 million square feet and generating an annual turnover of around ₹1,800 crore. Related projects under the South City brand included South City Garden, Belair, Galaxy, Business Park, Infopark, and Retreat.
Mohta also serves on the boards of South City Mall and Acropolis Mall, both prominent Kolkata shopping centres, and holds a director's role with the South City Group of Companies. Corporate-records aggregation lists him as having roughly 39 years in corporate governance, holding director or designated-partner roles across numerous group entities, including South City Projects (Kolkata) Ltd. (founded 1995), South City Recreation Private Limited (founded 2005), and South City Anmol Infra Park LLP (founded 2010), among others.
International expansion and later projects (2010s–present)
Merlin extended the South City brand internationally with South City Altair in Colombo, Sri Lanka a tower designed by architect Moshe Safdie, known for Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. In 2023, Merlin Group announced a partnership with the World Trade Centers Association (WTCA) to develop the World Trade Centre Kolkata, a roughly 3.5-million-square-foot commercial project on a 10.5-acre plot in the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA) area of Salt Lake Sector V, Kolkata. The project's licence agreement was signed by Scott Wang, WTCA's Vice President for the Asia-Pacific region, alongside Sushil Mohta as Merlin Group's Chairman and his son Saket Mohta as Managing Director.
By the mid-2020s, Merlin Group's presence had expanded to multiple Indian cities including Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Bhubaneswar in addition to its Colombo operations. In late 2025 and into 2026, Mohta was quoted in business press discussing Kolkata's growth prospects as a real estate market, citing new metro infrastructure and proposed land-reform changes (including the anticipated abolition of the Urban Land Ceiling Act) as factors positioning the city for what he described as a "real estate renaissance."
Industry leadership roles
Beyond Merlin, Mohta has played a significant institutional role in India's real estate sector:
- Founder member of CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India), the apex body representing private real estate developers across the country
- President of CREDAI–West Bengal
- Member of various West Bengal government committees involved in housing and urban-development policy, reforms, and real estate–related legislation
- Recognition for Merlin Group's work under his chairmanship has reportedly included industry honours from The Economic Times and CREDAI Bengal's realty awards, though specific award names and years were not independently verified for this article
Family
Mohta's son, Saket Mohta, is the Managing Director and CEO of Merlin Group and has increasingly represented the company in recent business announcements, including co-signing the World Trade Centre Kolkata licence agreement in 2023. Profile material also notes that the owners of Aryan Mining are related to the Mohta family by marriage, though further detail on this connection was not independently confirmed.