Section 34
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata
Founded the Tata Group and planned India's first steel, power and science institutions. (Tata Group)
- life
- 1839–1904
- era
- Before Independence
- ₹21,000
- Starting capital of his trading firm · 1868
- ₹30 lakh
- Personal pledge for the Indian Institute of Science · 1899
The story
Jamsetji Tata was born in Navsari in 1839 and studied at Elphinstone College in Bombay. In 1868, aged 29, he started a trading company with a capital of Rs 21,000.
He learned by doing. In 1869 he bought a bankrupt oil mill in Bombay, turned it into a cotton mill and sold it two years later at a profit. In 1874 he floated a textile company with Rs 1.5 lakh of seed capital, and its Empress Mills in Nagpur began work on 1 January 1877. He chose Nagpur over Bombay because it was close to cotton, water and the railway.
His larger dreams were steel, hydro-electric power and a science institute. He pledged Rs 30 lakh of his own money for the Indian Institute of Science in 1899. Of his big plans, only the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay opened in his lifetime, in December 1903.
He died in 1904. His sons carried the plans forward: Tata Steel was set up in 1907, Tata Power in 1910, and IISc took its first students in 1911.
Timeline
- 1868Starts a trading company in Bombay with Rs 21,000.
- 1877Empress Mills starts work in Nagpur on 1 January.
- 1892Sets up the JN Tata Endowment to help Indian students study abroad.
- 1899Pledges Rs 30 lakh for the Indian Institute of Science.
- 1903Taj Mahal Hotel opens in Bombay on 16 December.
- 1907Tata Iron and Steel Company is set up, three years after his death.