Maruti Chairman R C Bhargava has been conferred Padma Bhushan while Ajay Banga, CEO of Mastercard received the Padma Shri award
New Delhi : Business tycoon late Dhirubhai Ambani and construction magnate Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry are among industrialists chosen for this year’s highest civilian awards that recognise the country’s best talents.
The government has decided to posthumously confer the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honour, on founder of the Reliance Group Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani.
Pallonji Mistry, Chairman of Shapoorji Pallonji Group and the 5th richest Indian, as well as R C Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Udyog, have been conferred Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honour. Ajaypal S Banga, Chief Executive Officer and President of Mastercard Incorporated, is among the industry leaders chosen for Padma Shri award.
Pharma magnate and founder of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Dilip Shanghvi, the second richest Indian after Ambani’s son Mukesh, and Saurabh Srivastava, Chairman, India Operations of CA Technologies Inc, too were chosen for Padma Shri awards.
Son of a school teacher in a remote village in Gujarat, Ambani lived in a one-room chawl in Mumbai with his wife and children and went on to found textile-to-oil-telecom Reliance Group. He returned from Aden, where he worked as a petrol pump attendant and then as a clerk in an oil company, in 1958 to set up Reliance Trading Corporation (which imported polyester and exported spices), later renamed Reliance Textiles Corporation before finally being named Reliance Industries.
Ambani was 26 when he returned to India and eight years later set up his first textile mill, turning out polyester cloth under the Vimal brand name at Naroda near Ahmedabad in 1966. He listed Reliance on the Bombay and Ahmedabad stock exchanges in January 1978 and set up a polyester plant in the 1980s.
In 1990s, he turned aggressively towards petrochemicals, oil refining, telecommunications and financial services.
In 1976-77, Reliance had an annual turnover of Rs 70 crore. By the time he passed away on July 6, 2002, Ambani had converted this fledgling enterprise into a Rs 75,000-crore colossus – an achievement that earned Reliance a place in the global Fortune 500 list.
Mistry, 86, is said to be the world’s most reclusive billionaire. For a man ranked 5th richest Indian by Forbes with a wealth of USD 14.7 billion in 2015, he is surprisingly invisible, rarely seen or heard in the public space.
His construction empire spans India, West Asia and Africa. But his biggest source of wealth remains his 18.4 per cent stake in Tata Sons, the holding company for the $109 billion Tata Group, chaired by his younger son Cyrus.
