INTRO: The brochure of your house looks aesthetically appealing to you, the pool, the gym, the Amphitheatre, the yoga retreat, etc., may sell the flat, but the real thing that decides your flat’s future is the pump room. Confused?
Here’s what Firoj Kumar Jena, CEO of Clancy Global, has put a spotlight on: the parts of the building nobody photographs, including the fire systems for 200+ high-rises. In an exclusive interview with Bhavna Satsangi from Square Foot Story, he explains what your brochure leaves out, how to spot greenwashing from a mile away, and the one question that reveals a building’s true quality before you sign.Â
Every real estate purchase in India begins the same way: floor plans, amenity decks, price per square foot, and a walk-through of the sample flat. Weeks of comparison. And yet almost nobody asks the question that will quietly decide how the building performs for the next twenty years: who engineered its systems?
At Square Foot Story, we believe every square foot carries a story buyers deserve to read before they sign. Much of that story is written in places you’ll never be shown: inside shafts, above false ceilings, in the pump room. So we took our questions to someone who has spent his career in exactly those places.
Firoj Kumar Jena is the CEO of Clancy Global, an MEP (Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing) consultancy whose portfolio spans luxury residential projects for groups like Hiranandani and Rustomjee, life-critical hospital infrastructure for Apollo and Kokilaben, and most recently, SBI’s Global Capability Centre. Here’s what he wants every homebuyer in NCR to know.
SFS: Most buyers spend weeks comparing builders, locations, and price per square foot, but rarely ask who engineered the building’s systems. Why does that question get skipped, and what should buyers actually be asking?
Firoj Kumar Jena: For too long, real estate marketing and buyers themselves have focused on what is visible: the floor plans, the amenities, the location. The assumption is that buyers respond to what appeals to them emotionally, while building systems are treated as a technical afterthought.
That logic is flawed, because these “invisible” systems often determine whether the building remains comfortable, efficient, and affordable to maintain ten or twenty years later.
Some useful questions to ask during the decision-making process:
Who designed the MEPF systems: mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and firefighting?Â
What fire safety standards have been adopted?Â
Is there a centralised facility management strategy?Â
How is water, power, and HVAC efficiency being achieved?Â
Has the project been independently reviewed or certified?
The biggest shift has to happen in the buying mindset. Buildings are not consumer products. They must be evaluated in the same way as infrastructure is.
SFS: In two decades of MEP consulting, what’s the one thing about a building’s engineering you wish were as visible to buyers as the clubhouse or the swimming pool in the brochure?
Firoj Kumar Jena: Amenities are important, but what actually determines long-term liveability and safety are factors like electrical infrastructure, firefighting systems, water management, ventilation, pressure zoning, emergency power, and automation systems. Paying more attention to these details results in a far more informed and ultimately more satisfying purchase decision.
SFS: “Green certified” appears on almost every new launch in NCR today. Can you break down what that actually means? What separates a genuinely Platinum or Gold IGBC/LEED-rated building from one that’s simply registered, or certified at entry level?
Firoj Kumar Jena: A project that is merely registered means the developer has only initiated the certification process, nothing more. The real distinction lies in whether the building delivers measurable savings and performance outcomes that are independently verified.
Beyond asking whether a project is green certified, buyers should ask which specific sustainability features have actually been implemented and verified.
SFS: You’ve executed both green new constructions and core-and-shell projects. What’s a red flag buyers can look for to tell a real green building from a marketing claim?
Firoj Kumar Jena: Greenwashing is a common concern in sustainable building. A major red flag is when sustainability claims are limited to landscaping, solar lighting in a few common areas, or token decorative green features.
What determines whether a building is genuinely sustainable is whether its MEP services operate at the lowest cost with the highest efficiency, and that is only possible when sustainability is integrated into the project’s design from the very beginning, not added on at the end.
SFS: You’ve designed firefighting systems for 200+ high-rises. From your experience, what actually goes wrong when fire safety design gets compromised or rushed, and would a buyer or resident be able to tell from the outside?
Firoj Kumar Jena: Fire safety is one area where mistakes can remain hidden for years, until the systems are suddenly and unexpectedly called into action.
Some of the most common issues we’ve encountered include inadequate water storage, incorrect pump sizing, poor pressure calculations, non-compliant refuge areas, improper smoke management systems, poor coordination between architectural and fire-safety requirements, and delayed integration during construction. Unfortunately, these deficiencies are usually discovered only during audits, inspections, system testing, or emergencies.
When fire safety design is compromised, the biggest risk isn’t that a fire becomes more likely. It’s that a small, containable fire can escalate into a life-threatening event.
And most residents can’t reliably tell from the outside, because many critical fire-safety features are hidden behind walls, above ceilings, inside shafts, or embedded in the building’s design. Frequent false alarms, blocked stairwells or exits, missing inspection records, and a poor maintenance culture do indicate that fire safety has been treated as a checklist item, but these signs are not foolproof and are often overlooked.
SFS: Is there a specific fire safety standard or system buyers should ask their builder or relationship manager about before booking that almost nobody currently does?
Firoj Kumar Jena: The National Building Code, or NBC, is India’s model code for how buildings should be planned, designed, constructed, and maintained. It is published by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), and the widely referenced current version is NBC 2016.
It is a master rulebook covering building planning and layout, structural design, fire and life safety, electrical systems, plumbing and drainage, among other things. Fire and Life Safety specifies requirements for the number and width of staircases, fire exits, refuge areas, firefighting systems, and other essential fire safety details. That is the part buyers should be asking about.
SFS: Can you walk us through what a coordination breakdown between architecture, structure, and MEP design typically looks like on a real project and how it eventually shows up as a delay the buyer experiences?
Firoj Kumar Jena: A coordination breakdown usually begins very early in the design stage, long before construction starts.
An architect may finalise floor layouts and ceiling heights, while the structural engineer fixes beam depths and column locations. Later, when the MEP team begins routing air-conditioning ducts, plumbing pipes, electrical trays, firefighting systems, and ventilation shafts, they may discover that the available space is insufficient or that critical services clash with structural elements.
In a common scenario, a service shaft that appeared adequate during concept design turns out to be too small during detailed engineering. This triggers redesigns, revised drawings, fresh approvals, and often rework on site after construction has already begun. Similarly, large HVAC ducts may conflict with beams, forcing either structural modifications or reductions in ceiling height.
These issues may seem technical, but their impact is very real. They lead to procurement delays, repeated contractor submissions, construction stoppages, and additional costs. For the buyer, the consequences eventually appear as delayed possession, last-minute design changes, compromised aesthetics, higher maintenance costs, or operational issues after occupancy.
This is precisely why modern projects increasingly rely on BIM (Building Information Modelling) and multidisciplinary design reviews. The objective is to identify and resolve clashes digitally before they become expensive problems on site. In my experience, the most successful projects are not the ones with the most complex engineering. They are the ones where architects, structural engineers, and MEP consultants collaborate from the earliest stages and work as one integrated team, rather than three separate disciplines.
SFS: You’ve worked across very different building types, luxury residential for groups like Hiranandani and Rustomjee, hospitals like Apollo and Kokilaben, and most recently SBI’s Global Capability Centre. How does the engineering rigour change across these categories, and does a residential buyer get the same standard?
Firoj Kumar Jena: The fundamental principles of good engineering remain the same across all building types: safety, reliability, efficiency, maintainability, and occupant comfort. However, the level of rigour, redundancy, and performance expectations certainly varies depending on the function of the building.
In hospitals such as Apollo or Kokilaben, engineering systems are literally life-critical. A power failure, a ventilation issue, or an interruption in medical gas systems can directly affect patient care. These facilities require multiple layers of redundancy, stringent testing and commissioning, specialised HVAC systems, infection-control measures, and continuous operational reliability.
Large corporate facilities such as SBI’s Global Capability Centre demand high uptime, advanced building management systems, cybersecurity-integrated infrastructure, energy efficiency, and business continuity planning. These buildings are designed to support thousands of occupants and critical business operations without interruption.
Residential buildings, on the other hand, are often more cost-sensitive and amenity-driven. While they must fully comply with safety codes and regulatory requirements, developers sometimes face pressure to optimise costs, which can influence engineering decisions. That said, the best residential developers today understand that engineering quality directly impacts resident satisfaction, maintenance costs, operational efficiency, and the long-term value of the asset.
SFS: If a buyer could ask just one question to their builder or sales team to genuinely gauge the quality of a building’s engineering before signing, what should that question be?
Firoj Kumar Jena: Ask who designed the building’s MEPF systems, and what standards were used for the design. Who is the MEP consultant? And if possible, ask for the MEP GFC, the Good For Construction drawings to be included as part of the agreement documents.
SFS: Looking ahead, what’s one shift in technology, regulation, or buyer awareness that would meaningfully raise the engineering standard across Indian real estate?
Firoj Kumar Jena: The biggest change would be greater buyer awareness of building performance, rather than just building appearance. When buyers start asking questions about energy and water efficiency, fire safety, building automation, facility-management readiness, and sustainability performance, they make more informed purchase decisions, and developers, in turn, feel compelled to adhere to world-class engineering standards to meet that demand.
THE BUYER’S CHEAT SHEET
Seven questions from this interview to carry into your next site visit:
- Who is the MEP consultant on this project?
- Can the MEP GFC (Good For Construction) drawings be part of my agreement documents?
- What fire safety standards does the project follow, specifically NBC 2016, (Fire & Life Safety)?
- Which sustainability features are actually implemented and independently verified beyond “registered”?
- How is water, power, and HVAC efficiency being achieved?
- Is there a centralised facility management strategy?
- Has the project been independently reviewed or certified?
If the sales team can’t answer these, that silence is itself an answer.
This interview is part of Square Foot Story’s mission to make the invisible parts of Indian real estate visible because every square foot has a story, and buyers deserve to read it before they sign.Â
Visit Instagram: Clancy Global
From SFS Desk:
https://squarefootstory.com/dakhin-dilli-a-journey-of-sacred-art-from-north-to-south-india/
https://squarefootstory.com/gurugram-luxury-housing-boom-what-first-time-buyers-need-to-know/
https://squarefootstory.com/from-luxury-villas-to-sky-villas-future-of-premium-housing/
