Basant Kumar Birla (12 January 1921 – 3 July 2019) was an Indian businessman of the

Birla family The Birla family is a family connected with the industrial and social history of India. Foundations The Birla family origins lie with the Maheshwari caste of Bania Vaishya traders but they were outcast from their traditional community in 1922 ...

. He was chairman of the Krishnarpan Charity Trust, BK Birla Institute of Engineering & Technology (BKBIET) and various educational trusts and institutes.

Biography

Birla, the youngest son of philanthropist

Ghanshyam Das Birla Ghanshyam Das Birla (10 April 1894 – 11 June 1983) was an Indian businessman and member of the Birla Family. Birla family history Ghanshyam Das Birla was born on 10 April 1894 at Pilani town in Jhunjhunu district, in the region known as R ...

, was born on 12 January 1921. By fifteen years of age, he was already actively associated with a large number of companies and eventually became the chairman of Kesoram Industries. In this role, he concentrated on the industries of cotton, viscose,

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain the ester functional group in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include natural ...

and nylon yarns, refractory, paper, shipping, tyrecord, transparent paper, spun pipe, cement, tea, coffee, cardamom, chemicals,

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

, MDF Board, etc. In 1959, he established the Indo Ethiopian Textiles Share Company, which was the first major joint venture by any Indian industrialist. In response, the

Emperor of Ethiopia The emperor of Ethiopia ( gez, ንጉሠ ነገሥት, nəgusä nägäst, "King of Kings"), also known as the Atse ( am, ዐፄ, "emperor"), was the hereditary monarchy, hereditary ruler of the Ethiopian Empire, from at least the 13th century ...

, Haile Selassie I, awarded him the medal of the Order of Menelik II, the highest Ethiopian award. On 13 April 1942, he married Sarla, the daughter of activist and writer

Brijlal Biyani Brijlal Biyani (1896–1968) was an Indian independence activist and writer. He grew up in the Akola district of Maharashtra and studied at the Morris College in Nagpur. Biyani joined the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920. His participation in ...

, after having been introduced to each other by Jamnalal Bajaj and Mahatma Gandhi in 1941. They had a son, Aditya Vikram Birla and two daughters, Jayshree Birla and Manjushree Birla. He was the chairman of the Krishnarpan Charity Trust, which runs an

engineering college Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional development, professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education (Bachelor's degree, bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any ...

named BK Birla Institute of Engineering & Technology in Pilani, Rajasthan, the Swargashram Trust, which administers a Sanskrit school in

Rishikesh Rishikesh, also spelt as Hrishikesh, is a city near Dehradun in Dehradun district of the Indian state Uttarakhand. It is situated on the right bank of the Ganges River and is a pilgrimage town for Hindus, with ancient sages and saints meditati ...

. He also established

Birla Public School Vidya Niketan Birla Public School Pilani is a boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of " room and board", i.e. lodgi ...

in Qatar and the Birla College of Arts, Science & Commerce in Kalyan near Mumbai. He is the author of several books, including an autobiography entitled ''Svantah Sukhaya''. Birla died on 3 July 2019, at the age of 98.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Birla, Basant Kumar 1921 births 2019 deaths Businesspeople from Kolkata Founders of Indian schools and colleges Indian businesspeople in textiles Rajasthani people 20th-century Indian philanthropists Recipients of Order of the Holy Trinity (Ethiopia)

Biography

See also

References

External links