The name
Ashima
Ashima is our founder’s mother. It is also close to asīma, the Sanskrit word for boundless, for something without edge or limit.
A mother doesn’t measure what she gives a house. Over thirty years of building homes, we have tried to work the same way: no corner cut because nobody would see it, no date promised that we couldn’t keep.
Our first building went up in Santoshpur in 1995. It is called Prarthana, after our founder’s daughter. We have kept the habit since.
The name came first. We have spent three decades trying to deserve it.
Consent needed before launch. The third paragraph names a living person. Her explicit consent is required. If she declines, cut that paragraph whole. Do not soften it to “a member of the family”, which reads evasive.
What we do
What we do
Residential development in South Kolkata, largely on joint-venture terms with landowners; institutional and government contracts alongside.
The buildings are small. Eight flats, twelve, occasionally twenty. Four floors and a lift, covered parking at ground level, on plots between Santoshpur and Sonarpur. We have never tried to become a company that builds towers, and the localities we work in are the ones we can reach in twenty minutes.
Thirty years
Thirty years
1995
Partha Pratim Roy leaves an earlier business and builds Prarthana in Santoshpur, a small residential building on a plot belonging to a family who decided to develop rather than sell. Eight flats over three floors. It sets the pattern for everything after it.
2000s
Santoshpur and Garfa fill in. The plots that come up are the ones where a family house has grown too large for the people still living in it, and the work becomes almost entirely joint-venture, so the owner keeps flats in the new building instead of selling the land. The firm settles into a size it has kept ever since, two or three buildings a year and none of them large.
Draft. Written for review. Needs Partha Pratim Roy to correct the dates, the localities and how many projects.
2010s
The Bypass opens up Mukundapur and the localities further south, and the firm follows the road. Institutional and government work begins alongside the residential building, including contracts for government-associated organisations and subcontracted civil packages for larger construction groups.
Draft. Written for review. Needs Partha Pratim Roy to correct the dates, the localities and how many projects.
Today
Sixty-plus delivered projects across Santoshpur, Garfa, Jadavpur, Mukundapur, Baruipur and Sonarpur. Residential development, largely on joint-venture terms with landowners, alongside institutional contracts.
How we work
How we work
- One date for possession, in the agreementNot a range, not a quarter. If we are going to miss it you will hear it from us before you work it out yourself.
- You can visit the site while it is being builtWithout an appointment. Bring your own engineer if you want to.
- The specification in the agreement is the specification that gets builtIf a material has to change because something is unavailable, we tell you what and why before it goes in.
- We are still reachable after handoverThe office has not moved since 1995 and the buildings are all within a few kilometres of it.
Draft. These four operating commitments were written for review. Confirm each one is genuinely what the business does before launch.
The founder
