NAMA : KAMINI A/P RAWICHANDRAN

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NO. MATRIK : 16050037
KELAS : DPSM 1A

Walchand Hirachand Doshi (1882 1953)

Dreamer

Walchand Hirachand didn't belong to a wealthy family. His father was a

small-time money lender but he had set his mind on something bigger. He
dreamt big and made that happen.
Simple living and big thinking were Walchand's foremost traits.
He got started first as a railway contractor in partnership with Laxmanroa
Phatak who was a railway clerk. Walchand was not content to sit quietly;
he was always incredibly ambitious and worked actively to achieve his
goals. While a railway contractor, Walchand bought a foundry and then a
mining lease. Whatever business he got into, Walchand grabbed it with
both hands. However, these decisions didn't sit well with his partner, who
wanted to concentrate on a single business rather than diversifying. His
partner soon quit.
The original firm found it difficult to get large projects because of its small
size so he decided it to merge with the Tata group. Walchand directed and
oversaw some of the biggest construction projects of the preindependence era. The construction company he founded was later naed
Premier Construction, with a major stake owned by Tata.
In his later years, he went on to start a shipping company, the Scindia
Steam Navigation Company which went on to grab 21% of the Indian

coastal traffic. He then went on to found the first Indian aircraft company,
the Hindustan Aircraft, first modern shipyard, known as Hindustan
Shipyard Limited, and finally first car manufacturing plant, Premier
Automobiles.
Walchand Hirachand
Born

23 November 1882
British India

Died

8 April 1953 (aged 70)

Nationality

Indian

Occupation

Chairman Walchand Group

Relatives

Walchand family

His legacy remains important. By 1947, when India became independent, the Walchand group of
companies was one of the ten largest business houses in the country. The first Indian ship SS
Loyalty made its maiden international voyage on 5 April 1919 by sailing from Mumbai to London.
Walchand Hirachand was personally present on the ship. After India became independent, 5 April
has been declared the National Maritime Day to honour that voyage. While Walchand pioneered
a role for India in several industries, his dependence on excessive leverage and nationalisation
seem to have taken the sheen off his contributions. The car factory, while the first in India, trailed
the Birlas' Hindustan Motors in terms of market share. Walchandnagar Industries Limited, located
at Walchandnagar, an industrial township near Pune is today a strategic defence and nuclear
equipments manufacturing company. Absence of direct male heirs may also have had a role in
the nature of the businesses left behind by him. For Walchand, industry was probably not just a
place to make money but also to have adventure. For example, a visit to Hollywood inspired him
to construct a huge studio now known as Walchand Studio in India for which he was earlier in
talks with the famous Bollywood producer-director V. Shantaram without a tangible result.
However, for years to come, he would probably be remembered as the man who dared to dream
and was able to materialise most of his dreams into reality by his steadfastness and willpower.[2][3]
[4][5]

As Walchand Hirachand died without any heirs, his business is now run by descendants of his
brothers like Gulabchand Hirachand, Lalchand Hirachand, Ratanchand Hirachand, who worked
together till they were alive.

Philanthropy
During his lifetime, he started several charitable trusts, to look after several and also establish
new educational institutions, boarding house and carry on other philanthropic works and
sponsorships, including:

Walchand Institute of Technology, at Solapur, India

Walchand College of Engineering, Sangli, founded in 1947[31]

Walchand Dale Carnegie Finishing School at Bellandur, India[32]

Walchand College of Arts and Science, Solapur, established in 1962[33]

Smt. Kasturbai Walchand College, Sangli, named after his wife[34]

Seth Hirachand Nemchand Digambar Jain Boarding, Pune, a boarding house founded in
1941 for Jains and named after the father of Walchand Hirachand and his brothers [35]
Walchand Public School, Sonipat

Honors and monuments

A road in Mumbai is named after him as Walchand Hirachand Marg.

A road in Solapur, his hometown is also named after him as Seth Walchand Hirachand
Marg.
Government of India issued a postage stamp honouring him 2004.[36]
A hall is named after him as Walchand Hirachand Hall at Indian Merchants'
Chamber house at Mumbai in his memory and honour.[37]
Walchandnagar, an industrial township near Pune is named after him.

Early life
Walchand Hirachand was from a Gujarati Jain family hailing from Wankaner in Gujarat, who had
settled in Solapur in the erstwhile Bombay Presidency.[2] He was born in Solapur, (now
in Maharashtra) in a Digambar Jain family to Seth Hirachand Nemchand Doshi by his first wife
Raju. Hirachand was engaged in cotton trading and money lending. Walchand's mother died a

few days after his birth. Hirachand married later to Sakhubai to whom his stepbrothers Gulabchand, Ratanchand andLalchand were born.[2]

Education
Walchand matriculated in 1899 from Solapur Government High School and later attended St.
Xaviers College and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. Later he attended Deccan College in
Pune but left his studies incomplete to join his family business.[7]

Marriage
While he was still studying, in 1900 he married Jiu Kilachand, daughter of a Solapur banker.
From this marriage, he had a daughter named Chatur, but his wife died in childbirth. Later in
1913, under family pressure, he married to Kastur Mehta. From his second marriage, he had a
boy and girl child but both died in infancy.[7]

Early business
After spending a few years in his father's family business of banking and cotton trades, he
realised he was not interested in the family business. He became a railway contractor for
constructions in partnership with a former railway clerk, Laxmanrao Balwant Phatak; the
partnership later became Phatak-Walchand private limited. Walchand proved to be a successful
railway contractor but was open to other business ideas as well. [2][3][4][5][8]

Career
Walchand was noted for his ambition and vision. Among his adversaries, the more charitable
termed him a dreamer while the less charitable dismissed him as a person who wanted to run
even before learning to walk. Despite not hailing from an established business house, the
projects undertaken by Walchand were grand in design, to say the least. While attention to detail
in planning was not one of his strengths, he always seemed to know how to find his way around.
This was true especially with respect to manpower management, meeting deadlines and raising
funds. Most of his projects were highly leveraged. While he seemed to oppose nationalisation
and government control of some of the projects he started such as the shipyard and the aircraft
factory, the fact remains that these businesses may have had to face liquidation but for
government investing the money. Also, it needs to be noted that the government also had a
strong interest in the operation of these industries as it directly helped in its war efforts. Despite
exercising management control in firms such as Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd.,
Hindustan Aircraft and Hindustan Shipyard, he was not the largest shareholder in any of these
companies. He understood the power of mass media and cultivated it to gather public support for
his projects; while this may appear to be easy in the politically charged days of the British Raj, it

also has to be kept in mind that running newspapers perceived to be in opposition with the
government was fraught with dangers. Thus, it becomes clear that his persuasive abilities were
helpful in generating good press and public goodwill towards his projects. As a contractor
engaged in construction, his biggest customer was the British government; he worked with British
officials closely in several projects. However, he supported the Indian Independence
Movement and most of his projects were inaugurated (including launching of new ships) by
famous freedom fighters. He was able to maintain a fine line between these opposite forces.
Walchand along with Annie Besant and M. R. Jayakar together were the first sponsors of
pioneering national news agency, the Free Press of India founded in 1927.[9]Walchand was
among the early and active supporters of Indian National Congress along with other stalwarts of
Indian industry and funded[10] many of its activities.[11]In 1930, various merchant bodies of Bombay
under presidency of Walchand passed a resolution for immediate release of Mahatma
Gandhi but again in 1931, it was Walchand, who on behalf of Indian Merchants'
Chamber demanded from Gandhi that they were not happy with Gandhi-Irwin Pact and
demanded protection of Indian industries. Again in 1933 Walchand sent a deputation on behalf of
Indian Merchants' Chamber to Gandhi to persuade him to call off Civil Disobedience
Movement in interest of trade and commerce.[10][12] He was also a signatory to Bombay
Manifesto dated 26 May 1936, which opposed the socialist and Marxist ideas of Jawaharlal
Nehru.

Construction business
It was in the construction business, first as a railway contractor, and then as a contractor to other
departments of Government, that Phatak-Walchand private limited (partnership till 1915) made
money. Phatak left the firm after it bought a foundry and undertook a mining lease, with the view
that it was stretching itself into too many areas. Meanwhile, the firm found it difficult to bag larger
contracts due to small size and absence of marquee names. It was merged
into Tata Construction Company in 1920 to overcome these problems. Some of the major
projects executed by the company include the commissioning of the tunnels through
the Bhor Ghats for a railway route from Mumbai to Pune and laying of water pipes
from Tansa lake to Mumbai and also laying tracks for Barsi Light Railway. Other major projects
executed by the firm include the Kalabag Bridge over Indus and a bridge across the Irrawaddy
River in Burma. All these projects were directed by Walchand. In 1929, he became the managing
director of the company. In 1935, the company was renamed as Premier Construction to reflect
the fact that Tatas had sold their stake in the firm to Walchand. Other construction company he
founded was Hindustan Construction Company in 1926, which is today one of the civil and
engineering construction giants of India.

Sugar and confectionery

Walchand founded Walchandnagar Industries in 1908, which was started as a large-scale sugar
farming firm but was later diversified into also making sugar refined spirits, sugar machinery,
plastic goods, cement plant paper and pulp plant, and water tubes.[15] Walchand
made Gulabchand its chairman to look after its day-to-day affairs.[16] Walchandnagar Industries is
today a diversified company manufacturing also boilers, turbines and also supplies strategic
components to India's defence and aerospace sector.[17] WIL was subject to sanctions by the
United States following Pokhran-II for its involvement in India's nuclear and space programs.
[19]

The sanctions were dropped in 2001.

Another company in sugar and confectionery, the Ravalgaon Sugar Farm, was started by
Walchand in 1933 and it is the Confectionery Division was started in 1942. Today, Ravalgaon
Sugar is one of the market leaders in the Indian confectionery market, which is managed
professionally by independent Directors.

Shipping
In 1919, after the end of World War I, he along with his friends, Narottam Morarjee,
and Kilachand Devchand, bought a steamer, the SS Loyalty from the Scindias ofGwalior; with
Narottam Morarjee being major financer. Walchand's underlying assumption was that the postwar years would also spell massive growth for the shipping industry just as the war years had
done. However, British companies such as P&O and BI Shipping were strong in the shipping
industry and most of the attempts by domestic players till then had failed. Walchand named his
company The Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd. and competed with the foreign players. It
was recognised as the first Swadeshi shipping company in the true sense of the term and was
referred to widely in Mahatma Gandhi's columns in Young
India andHarijan on Swadeshi, boycott of foreign goods and Non co-operation movement. It
barely managed to survive after entering into agreements on routes and fare wars with its foreign
competitors. However, Walchand still supported new indigenous shipping ventures, as he
believed that a strong domestic shipping industry was the need of the hour. In 1929, he became
the Chairman of Scindia Steam and continued in the same position till 1950 when he resigned on
grounds of ill health. By 1953, the company had captured 21% of Indian coastal traffic. [2][3][4][6]
[9]

Sir Lallubahi Shamaldas was amongst the later directors of Scindia Steamship. [9]

Aircraft factory
In 1939, a chance acquaintance with an American aircraft company manager inspired him to
start an aircraft factory in India. Hindustan Aircraft was started in Bangalore in the Mysore
State with the active support of its Diwan, Mirza Ismail in December 1940, where Kingdom of
Mysore were partners in venture. Others, who invested their money were Dharamsey Mulraj
Khatau and Tulsidas Kilachand. By April 1941, the Indian government acquired one-third of

ownership and by April 1942, it nationalised the company by

compensating shareholders adequately. The reasons that prompted the government for
nationalising were it was a sensitive and strategic sector; Japan's advances in the war meant
that the government needed fast responses and hence, direct ownership; and it could not allow a
crucial war project to remain undercapitalised or loss-making. Hindustan Aircraft was renamed
as Hindustan Aeronautics Limited

Insurance
To face competition in the shipping business from the British and other foreign businesses,
Walchand entered allied businesses such as insurance. In 1937, he presided over the
conference of Indian insurance companies held in Calcutta.

Shipyard[
He also believed that there was a strong need for a shipyard in the country and started work on it
in 1940 at Visakhapatnam. In the days when it was unthinkable of foundation ceremony to be
done by anyone other than British officials, the truly patriotic Walchand decided to break the
tradition and the foundation stone for the shipyard was laid by Dr. Rajendra Prasad on 21 June
1941, who was acting Congress President at that time. [22][23] It was named Scindia Shipyard
Limited and its first product, the ship Jalusha was launched soon after independence
by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1948. However, the shipyard came under government control a few
months later (due to the presumed importance of the project to country's security and economic
growth) and was fully nationalised in 1961 and was renamed Hindustan Shipyard Limited.[2][3]

Car factory
As early as 1939, Walchand was interested in establishing a car factory in India. Birla family was
also working in the same direction. In 1940, he signed an MOU with Chrysler but could not get
clearances and concessions from the Mysore government unlike in the case of the aircraft
company. In 1945, he established Premier Automobiles near Mumbai. Again in this venture his
other partners were Dharamsey Mulraj Khatau and Tulsidas Kilachand, who were also
Walchand's partners in Hindustan Aircraft. By 1948, the company started indigenisation in a
small way with an in-house components department. The first car rolled out of his factory in
1949, thus beating Birla's Hindustan Motors venture in the race. In 1955, it tied up with Fiat and
started manufacturing engines in India. By 1956, parts of chassiswere locally made.

Public life
Walchand was one of the founder members of Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry &
Agriculture and served as its President for eleven consecutive years from 192738. [25] Walchand
was also the founder of Indian National Shipowners' Association, which was founded in 1929 and

served as its President for 19 consecutive years from 192948. [26][27] He also helped launch
of Indian Sugar Mills Association and the Indian Sugar Syndicate.[28] He served as President of
Indian Mechants' Chamber for years 192728.[29] Also Walchand founded Deccan Sugar
Factories Association and Deccan Sugar Technologists Association, whose first President was
made his younger brother Lalchand and was also force behind institutions like Association of
Indian Automobiles Manufacturers, the Automotive Research Association of India.

Death
In 1949, he suffered from a stroke and retired from business in 1950. [2] He was looked after by his
wife, Kasturbai passionately in his last years, who took him away to natural surroundings and
religious town of Siddhapur in Gujarat away from Bombay, so that he could recover his health.
[2]

He died on 8 April 1953 at Siddhapur.[2]

He was survived by his wife Kastur and daughter Chatur, who was from his first marriage. [7][30]