Section 36
Kalpana Saroj
Kamani Tubes · Roperkheda, Akola, Maharashtra
- ₹50,000
- Bank loan she applied for to start a tailoring unit
- Over $100 million
- Estimated net worth · 2015
The story
Kalpana Saroj grew up in a Dalit family near Akola in Maharashtra. Her father was a police constable. At 12 she was taken out of school and married, and sent to live in a slum in Ulhasnagar. Her father brought her home after six months because her in-laws harassed her.
At around 17 she went back to Mumbai and found work in a tailoring workshop in Lower Parel. After her sister died for lack of treatment, she applied for a ₹50,000 bank loan under a government scheme for backward castes. By the time the loan came, she had moved into the steel furniture business. She later bought a plot of land caught in a legal dispute, cleared the case, and built a real estate business.
In 2002 workers of Kamani Tubes, a Mumbai copper tube maker that had gone sick, asked her for help. She bought the company in 2006, hired consultants, negotiated with banks, settled with the unions and moved the factory from Kurla to Wada. Business Standard reported in 2015 that she had turned it around and that her net worth was estimated at over $100 million.
Timeline
- 1989The industrial reconstruction board hands Kamani Tubes to its workers, but losses continue.
- 2002Kamani workers approach her for help.
- 2006Buys Kamani Tubes and begins the turnaround; factory moves from Kurla to Wada.
- 2015Business Standard estimates her net worth at over $100 million.