Jamsetji Tata - Business

Business

Jamsetji worked in his father's company until he was 29. He founded a trading company in 1868 with Rs. 21,000 capital. He bought a bankrupt oil mill in Chinchpokli in 1869 and converted it to a cotton mill, which he renamed Alexandra Mill. He sold the mill two years later for a profit. He set up another cotton mill in Nagpur in 1874, which he christened Empress Mill when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on 1 January 1877.

He devoted his life to four goals: setting up an iron and steel company, a world-class learning institution, a unique hotel and a hydro-electric plant. Only the hotel became a reality during his lifetime, with the inauguration of the Taj Mahal Hotel on 3rd December 1903.

His successors' work led to the three remaining ideas being achieved:

• Tata Steel (formerly TISCO - Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited) is Asia's first and India's largest steel company. It became world's fifth largest steel company, after it acquired Corus Group producing 28 million tonnes of steel annually.
• The Indian Institute of Science
• The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in the Colaba district of Mumbai cost Rs. 42,100,000 to build. Taking inflation into account it would cost Rs. 11,475,496,284 (£160,962,295) in 2010 prices. At the time it was the only hotel in India to have electricity. It had American fans, German elevators, Turkish bathtubs and British butlers and waiters.
• The Tata Power Company Limited is India's largest private electricity company with an installed generation capacity of over 2300 MW.