LIFE OF A RISK TAKER

The term entrepreneur is a loanword from French, and is commonly used to describe an individual who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on financial risk to do so. India is the nation of entrepreneurs and this nation has managed to develop several entrepreneurs and the biggest example is DHIRAJLAL HIRACHAND AMBANI commonly known as DHIRU BHAI AMBANI. DHIRU BHAI AMBANI was one of the foremost Indian entrepreneur and businessman who founded INDIAs largest private sector company, RELIANCE INDIA LIMITED. He was born into MODH family on th 28 December 1932 in Chorwad, Junagadh, Gujrat. His father was a school teacher. DHIRU BHAI AMBANI was precocious and highly intelligent. He was also highly impatient of the oppressive grinding mill of the school classroom. When he was 17 years old, he moved to Aden (now part of Yemen). Initially, DHIRU BHAI AMBANI worked as the dispatch clerk with A.Besse & co. After becoming the distributor of the shell products, company promoted him to manage the companys oil filing station at the port of Aden. In 1958, he returned to Mumbai and started his first company, RELIANCE COMMERCIAL CORPORATION, a commodity trading and export house with an initial capital of Rs.15000. The primary business was to import polyester yarn and export spices Dhirubhai set up the business in partnership with Champaklal Damani from whom he parted ways in 1965. Dhirubhai was a known risk taker and he considered that building inventories, anticipating a price rise, and making profits through that was good for growth. Dhirubhai started his first textile mill at Naroda, near Ahmedabad in 1966 and started the brand VIMAL. Textiles were manufactured using polyester fiber yarn. Dhirubhai started named the brand after his elder brother Ramaniklal Ambanis son, Vimal Ambani. Extensive marketing of the brand Vimal made it a household name in the interiors of India. In 1975, a technical team from World Bank certified that the Reliance textile plant was excellent by developed country standards. In the year 1977, the company went public. With the passage of time, Dhirubhai diversified into petrochemicals and sectors like telecommunication, information technology, energy, power, retails, textiles, infrastructure service, capital market and logistics. The Federation of Indian chamber of commerce and industry (FICCI) named him the INDIAN th ENTREPRENURE of the 20 century. A poll conducted by the Times of India in 2000 voted him greatest creator of wealth in the century. The chemical industry in India Chemtech Foundation and chemical engineering world in 2000 conferred him the Man of the Century award. Assisted by his two sons, Mukesh and Anil, Dhirubhai built Indias largest private sector company, Reliance India Limited. Over time, Dhirubhai diversified into petrochemicals and sectors like telecommunication, information technology, energy, power, retails, textiles, infrastructure service, capital market and logistics The BBC described the company as a whole as a business empire with an estimated annual turnover of dollar 12 billion and an 85000 strong workforce. Today the Reliance Group has one of the largest family of shareholders in the world. An investment of over 36000 crore (US dollar 9 billion) in petroleum refining, petrochemicals, power generation, telecommunication services and post terminal in a three year time frame, has steered the Reliance Group to its current status as Indias leading textiles-petroleum-petrochemicals-power-telecom player. Dhirubhai breathed his last on 6 july 2002. He suffered a major brain stroke. On the demise of Dhirubhai Ambani the Mumbai textile merchants decided to keep the market closed on the july 8, 2002, as a mark of respect to this great businessman. ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE, former Prime minister of India said of
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Dhirubhai The country has lost iconic proof of what an ordinary Indian f ired by the spirit of enterprise and driven by determination can achive in his own lifetime. Thus he will always be remembered as the one who rewrote Indian Corporate History and built a truly global corporate group.