Nationality Indian | ||
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Born 21 October 1972 (age 44) ( 1972-10-21 ) Rahimatpur, India Occupation Founder Chairman , BVG India Alma mater Vishwakarma Institute of Technology | ||
Hanmant R Gaikwad a.k.a. HR Gaikwad (born 21 October 1972) is an Indian entrepreneur and the Chairman and Managing Director of BVG India Limited, India's largest integrated services company.
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Early life
Gaikwad was born in the village of Rahimatpur. When he was in class six, his family shifted to Pune and lived in a tiny one room house. Despite the hardships, he secured 88% in class 10 and opted for a Diploma in Electronics. In the second year, he lost his father to a cardiac arrest. Gaikwad completed the diploma and went on to join the Vishwakarma Institute of Technology to study engineering, where he supported himself by working small jobs like taking tuition classes to painting houses and concreting pathways.
In 1994 he joined Telco (now Tata Motors) as a graduate trainee engineer in their Pune plant.
Career
During his early days at VIT, Gaikwad inspired by the writings of Swami Vivekananda, which led him to form a non-profit trust Bharat Vikas Pratishthan which would collect funds from donors to help poor students get quality education. This trust soon expanded into employment opportunities in the sector of skilled and unskilled labour.
In 1997 while working at Tata Motors, Gaikwad earned recognition from company management for his efforts in saving huge costs for the company by making productive use of cables otherwise marked as scrap. This recognition helped Gaikwad become known among the workers, and youth from his village started approaching him for jobs. He used the opportunity to request the management for some jobs for these youth. The plant management agreed to hire eight of them, but could not employ them on the company rolls. Gaikwad suggested that he could employ the people in a trust he had registered and Tata Motors could pay the trust. Given their confidence in him, Tata Motors not only accepted his suggestion but also helped him get Rs. 60 lakh in loan from Tata Finance to buy cleaning equipment. In 2000 Gaikwad formally resigned from Tata Motors and decided to name his organization as Bharat Vikas Group which was focused on a social approach to employment and skill development.
Bharat Vikas Group soon emerged as the leader in integrated service operations expanded into related facilities management operations and skill development in association with the Government of India. BVG’s other notable clients include the residence and office of the Prime Minister of India and the Rashtrapati Bhavan which is the residence of the President of India. As of 2012, the company is valued at Rs 1,000 crore and provides non-core activities such as mechanised housekeeping, hospital maintenance, landscaping & gardening, logistics, transportation, civil and electrical work, ambulance services, industrial and urban waste management etc. to private and government institutions. BVG is also expanding its operations into overseas territories.
Awards
Gaikwad is the recipient of several awards for his social and entrepreneurial initiatives and has spoken at international conferences. He received the prestigious Lokmat Maharashtrian Of The Year Award in 2011. He was featured in Rashmi Bansal's book Connect The Dots, a collection of inspiring stories about entrepreneurs. On 1 July 2016, Gaikwad was awarded the prestigious ABP Majha Sanman Puraskar by the leading Marathi news channel ABP Majha.
Personal life
Gaikwad lives in Pune with his wife and two daughters. He is fond of meditation.