Meet the tycoons from the city with India’s fourth-largest number of billionaires who are setting the Sabarmati on fire.
It was in 1969 that Karsanbhai Patel, a chemist at the Gujarat government’s department of mining and geology, decided to manufacture a yellow, phosphate-free, synthetic detergent powder from a 100 sq ft room. Priced at 3.50 per kg—almost a fourth the price of comparable products in the market—and named Nirma, after his daughter Nirupama, Patel would go door-to-door on his bicycle, selling 15-20 packets a day. By 1985, what started as a one-man brand became one of the most popular household detergent labels in India. With a net worth of $4.7 billion, the founder of the Ahmedabad-headquartered 5,524 crore Nirma is one of the eight from Gujarat’s industrial capital to feature in Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list. Only Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru have more billionaires.
Keeping Patel company are fellow Amdavadis like the Adanis, Mehtas of Torrent and Shahs of Cadila. The latest addition is Sandeep Engineer, managing director of Astral Pipes, with a net worth of $1.1 billion .
Gujarat and business have always been synonymous, and many of the established businessmen in the country’s financial capital of Mumbai—from Dhirubhai Ambani to Uday Kotak—are Gujaratis. Over the years, though, a number of industrialists who preferred to remain in the state—primarily Ahmedabad—have entered the big league, be it the Adani Group, Torrent or Cadila. The journey of these eight billionaires is evidence of the spirit of entrepreneurship of Ahmedabad and the passion to build something from scratch.
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