Name Nanji Mehta | ||
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16 august nanji kalidas mehta mehta group vasant teraiya
Nanji Kalidas Mehta, MBE, Rajratna, (17 November 1887 – 25 August 1969) was an industrialist and philanthropist from Gujarat. He founded the Mehta Group of Industries in British East Africa, now having its head office in India.
Contents
- 16 august nanji kalidas mehta mehta group vasant teraiya
- Lifesketch
- Honors
- India
- Uganda
- Kenya
- Tanzania
- References
Lifesketch
Mehta was born on 17 November 1887 in Gorana village, near Porbandar in the Princely State of Porbandar, British India. He was born in a Gujarati Hindu family of Lohana caste. He left for East Africa at the age of thirteen in 1900.
He married Santoshben Mehta. Shekhar Mehta, the sports car driver, and Jai Mehta, the businessman, are his grandsons.
He started his career as a trader and ventured into growing vegetable, cotton and then sugarcane in swamps of Africa. He then turned in sugar manufacturing and tea and coffee plantations in East Africa. He in his later life also started Cement plant, ginneries, textile unit and oil mills in India. He thus founded the Mehta Group on conglomerate, which is now spread across the globe.
He was contemporary of some other Gujarati businessman and philanthropist of East Africa like Meghji Pethraj Shah, Muljibhai Madhvani and others. On the original building of Muljibhai Maghvani's office in Jinja, Nanjibhai's name still appears as DUKA YA KALIDASI, a mark of their friendship.
He established the present day Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited under the name Uganda Sugar Factory in 1924 at Lugazi. He was one of the first exporters of Uganda's cotton to Japan and other places which greatly helped in the establishment of the cotton industry in Uganda.
In 1932 he established cotton mill named Maharana Mills in Porbandar, the land for which was given at measly sum by Maharana Natwarsinhji of Porbandar, which employed 2500 workers at time of independence. Nanjibhai was an Arya Samaji and was instrumental in giving Dalits the job in spite of protests by Brahmins. Again it was for breaking the strike in this Maharana Mills, Nanjibhai is said to have employed services of Devu and Karsan Vagher in late 1960s. In 1956 he established Saurashtra Cement Limited in Gujarat.
In 1966, he published his Autobiography named Dreams half expressed, where he mentions
"The way to success is a hard road to travel. Disappointments and failures dishearten us in the midst of struggle but a man of enterprise has to pass through the period with patience and cheerfulness till he gets his well deserved returns."
He died on 25 August 1969 at Porbandar in India.
Honors
Mehta was awarded an M.B.E. by Britain for his work in Uganda. He was also given the title of Raj Ratna of Porbandar State by H.H. Maharana Sri Natwarsinhji and a title of Dhrama Ratna (defender of faith) by the poet, Kaka Kalelkar.
In Uganda, upon his death, the flag flew at half mast.
India
After his demise, the following institutions have been named as his memorials:-