Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was an Indian pioneer industrialist, who founded the Tata Group which is India’s biggest conglomerate company. He also established the city of Jamshedpur.
Jamsetji Tata founded the Tata Group as a private trading firm in 1868. Regarded as the ‘Father of Indian Industry’, he was born in Navsari on March 3, 1839. The Tata Iron and Steel Industry he set up is considered to be the oldest industry in India.
Born into a Parsi family, Jamsetji was the first child and only son of Nusserwanji Tata. After graduating from Elphinstone College, Bombay (now Mumbai), in 1858, he joined his father’s export-trading firm and helped establish its branches in Japan, China, Europe, and the United States. In 1872 he focused on cotton manufacturing and subsequently founded mills at Nagpur, Bombay, and Coorla.
His enterprises were noted for efficiency, for improved labour-protection policies, and for the introduction of finer grades of fibre. He also planned for the Bombay-area hydroelectric power plants that became the Tata Power company in 1906.