HANMANTRAO GAIKWAD 39
RAHIMATPUR, MAHARASHTRA Businessman
“MY NAME IS Hanmantrao Gaikwad,” the five- yearold introduced himself on his first day at school in Rahimatpur village, Satara, Maharashtra. The honorific ‘ Rao’ took the teacher by surprise, but then, Gaikwad, chairman and managing director of India’s largest housekeeping firm, the Rs 1,000- crore Bharat Vikas Group ( BVG), took pride in himself from an early age. Son of Ramdas, a Pune sessions court clerk, he would sell fruit at Pune’s railway station to supplement the family income. Their struggles increased when his father passed away in 1990, but his mother took a loan of Rs 15,000 for him to study BTech at Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune.
Gaikwad joined Telco, now Tata Motors ( TM), in Pune in 1994. He soon impressed his supervisors, who let him launch his own firm and recruit eight villagers from Rahimatpur as housekeepers in 1997. TM, his first client, contracted him to maintain its Indica plant near Pune, and he quit his job. BVG’S clients now include Rashtrapati Bhavan, Delhi High Court, Prime Minister’s residence, Parliament House, etc. “My goal is a turnover of Rs 10,000 crore in three years,” says a confident Gaikwad.
“HE NOT ONLY GAVE EMPLOYMENTTO THOUSANDS, BUTALSO TOOK CARE OFTHEM LIKE THE HEAD OF AFAMILY. HE IS AN INSPIRATION TO MANYPEOPLE.”
Satish Borvankar, Executive Director, Tata Motors