Sri Ramesh Chandra Gupta

Till 1985 there was nothing in Ramesh Chandra Gupta’s forays into the steel rolling business that could have predicted the phenomenal success he was to enjoy, just a decade later.

Starting out with a small iron foundry, located in one of Patna City’s narrower by-lanes in 1980, he, today, owns one of the state’s bigger steel plant, located on a 15 acre plot of land, close to Sabalpur, on the capital’s outskirts, producing billets and reinforced iron bars under the trusted Kamdhenu brand. In 1980 his yearly income was a mere Rs 25,000.

He is among those individuals in the capital whose turnover each year, are in excess of Rs 250 crore. And to think, that he started his vast business empire some three decades ago, with just Rs 10,000, that too, borrowed from his not-so-well-to-do Kirana shop owner father Shree Ram Gupta.  His rags-to-riches story is the stuff of legend, which merely reinforces the ‘truism’ that where there’s a will there’s a way. Also, that the determination to make something of one’s life, mostly always, pays off.

Lady Luck smiles upon those who believe in themselves, those who dream big! So it was with  Ramesh Chandra Gupta. It was at this point in time, that two individuals as different as chalk is from cheese-entered his life. One was the Late Awadheshwar Mishra or ‘Masterji’; the other was Binay Singh, a big landlord of the Sabalpur area. Even though Ramesh ran two successful businesses-the desire to own and operate a steel-rolling mill of his own, had never really let go of him.

It was ‘Masterji’, tutor to the two children of SK Gambhir, a Patna City-based vest wholesaler and in whose house, Ramesh’s younger brother Vijay was a renter who egged on the elder Agarwal around 1996 to follow his dreams. It was ‘Masterji’ again, who put him in touch with Binay Singh.

A steel rolling mill requires land aplenty, and land as always, was expensive. Binay Singh, however, impressed with the young Marwari’s business acumen, agreed to enter into a partnership with him, howsoever much land he needed for his mill, on extremely moderate rates. With Ramesh and Binay as partners, the Dadiji Steels Lad came into being in 1997.

Lifeline

• Born in 1958 to Shree Ram Gupta and Narangi Devi in Rajasthan’s Alwar district’s Tatarpur village.
• Matriculated from the Tatarpur High School in 1973.
• Migrated to Patna in September 1973. Apprenticed to maternal uncle Basant Lal Goyal for threeyears; thereafter loaned to Basant Lal Goyal’s younger brother Matadin in 1976, his first employer. Matadin paid him a monthly salary of Rs 500 a month.
• Married to Urmila Devi of the neighbouring Udaipur district’s Kherwara village, in 1977.
• Son Sanchit born in 1979.
• Founded the Balaji Industries in 1980.