Velagapudi Ramakrishna

Velagapudi Ramakrishna was an Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer, industrialist, and philanthropist. He started the KCP (Krishna Commercial Products) group of companies in 1941 with a co-operative sugar factory in Andhra Pradesh.[1] He was a pioneering industrialist in the erstwhile Madras State.

Career

Ramakrishna was from a landowning family of the Kamma caste.[2] He was born in 1896 in the village of Bellamvaripalem, Nagaram mandal, near Repalle, in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, India. He went to England before World War I to study engineering and spent time at both Oxford University and the London School of Economics.[2] He acquired B.Sc. and M.A. degrees.

Ramakrishna joined the Indian Civil Service and eventually became Industrial Adviser to the Government of Madras before taking early retirement so that he could take over the Vuyyuru Co-operative Agricultural and Industrial Society, which he turned into a public limited company. The institution had been faltering prior to his involvement.[2]

Velagapudi Ramakrishna died in 1968. He had a son and a daughter.[3]

Positions held

Philanthropy

Ramakrishna funded the VSR & NVR College[4] in Tenali and the Sri Velagapudi Ramakrishna Memorial College[5] in Nagaram, Guntur district.

Memorials

The Velagapudi Ramakrishna Siddhartha Engineering College, near Vijayawada has been posthumously named after him,[6] as has the Andhra Chamber of Commerce building in Chennai.[7]

V. Ramakrishna Polytechnic in Thiruvottiyur, near Chennai, is an institution within the KCP campus and is named in memory of him.

References

  1. ↑ KCP Web site
  2. 1 2 3 Damodaran, H. (2008). India's New Capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation. Springer. pp. 99–100. ISBN 978-0-23059-412-8.
  3. ↑ "Private-public tie-ups must for growth: Governor". The Hindu. 30 April 2004. Retrieved 2016-09-20.
  4. ↑ http://gist.ap.nic.in/cgi-bin/edn/ednshow.cgi/?en=9403
  5. ↑ Accredited Colleges
  6. ↑ Welcome,V R Siddhartha Engineering College
  7. ↑ "In Chennai Today". The Hindu.

External links

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