Entrepreneur Icons of Modern India: Their Role in Economic Transformation

Abstract

India is one of the world’s biggest democratic sovereign countries. After obtaining independence on 15th of August 1947, with a population of 345 million India’s per capita income was Rs. 2496. India had a literacy rate of 12 percent and a life expectancy of mere 31 years. During these 70 years after independence, India is able to transform the dreams into reality by putting its efforts and manpower into productive use. The population has grown up-to 1.2 billion, a per-capita income has increased to Rs. 74920. Literacy rate has gone up to 74 percent and life expectancy to 70 years. India is one of the fast growing economies of the world. All this did not happen magically, there are big hands of Entrepreneur icons behind all this development. Each has contributed towards the economic and industrial development of the country. The private sector followed the lead given by the public sector and created iconic organizations like TATA Steel , ITC, Dabur, Hindalco, Reliance, Apollo Hospitals, Indigo and much more which served the community mostly in far flung areas by building schools, hospitals and other infrastructure who taught India that creating wealth was most egalitarian. These entrepreneur icons did not only play their role by sweating themselves to build India but also cleared the way for new future to the coming generations to come for economic, industrial and social transformation in India. The following objectives are, to explore the role of entrepreneur icons for industrial development in India, to analyse the contribution of these entrepreneur icons towards the state exchequer and to highlight the growth and present status of entrepreneurs in India. Keeping in view the time constraints and unfavourable conditions in the valley, the paper presenter has to depend upon the secondary data collected from various quarters. The data thus collected has been evaluated, tabulated and interpreted by using different statistical methods like ratios, rank, index number, percentage etc. to arrive at a meaningful conclusions and suggestions. After analysing the data the author has come to the conclusions and presents some suggestions.