When you have the will to succeed and commitment towards hardwork, you will definitely become successful even if your path is riddled with hardship and challenges. Despite spending his childhood in a dark 10×10 room he was full of self-pride and beamed with confidence. His approach towards life has taken him to great heights today where he employs more than 65,000 people under a India’s largest integrated services company – a brand he created from scratch.
Born and raised in a very poor family in Koregaon, Satara district of Maharashtra, Hanmant Ramdas Gaikwad was a bright student since the beginning, with mathematics being his favorite subject. His father worked as a clerk in the court and was the only earning member of the family. Their economic condition was weak but his father always made sure that this did not become a hindrance in his son’s education.
For accessing better education the family moved to the nearest town Satara where Hanumant started his studies at a Marathi school. Shifting to a costlier place meant giving up whatever little luxury they had. The whole family was living in a dingy 10×10 room which went dark with the nightfall as it had no electricity. Despite poverty being a constant distraction Hanumant maintained his focus on studies and began receiving scholarships from STD 4 by the state government. Early in his life he understood that education is the only way out of their pathetic condition. His first scholarship was Rs 10 per month.
“Out of all the days in a year, we made chapati only on my birthday. For sweetdish we had lemons squeezed into sugary water,” he says recalling his childhood days.
However, all their struggle was not going to end anytime soon. Fate played its game and his father received a transfer order for Mumbai. The shifting took a toll on his father who could not adjust to Mumbai weather. He fell sick and Hanumant’s mother had to mortgage all her jewelry to pay for the treatment of his ailing husband. With the sole bread winner down with illness, Hanumant began selling fruits at the railway station after returning from school. His mother began sewing and stitching clothes to feed her children.
His father wanted Hanumant to become an IAS officer. He continued to study hard to fulfill his father’s dream and passed the secondary education with 88 percent. Right after this he decided to choose a career where he could get a job soon and begin improving his family’s economic condition. He picked to pursue a polytechnic course in electronics.
Unfortunately, his father passed away during this period. The loss of his father made him chase education even more aggressively. He finished his polytechnic course and got admission for an engineering course from Government College of Aurangabad. all this while he gave tuitions to students and do odd jobs to support his family and earn some pocket money.
In 1994, he started his career as a trainee engineer with Tata Motors, Pune. Within just three years of working with the company he devised better utilization of scrap cables and saved huge cost to the company. His efforts were hugely appreciated.
The news about Hanumant’s performance reached his village and many people appraoched him requesting for a job at Tata Motors. He spoke to his seniors in the company and got eight people into the company but couldn’t get them on company rolls because of policy limitations.
In view of this problem, Hanumant had suggested that he would give employment to people through a non-profit trust and Tata Motors can make payment to the trust. This revolutionary idea was accepted by Tata Motors and they got Tata Finance to provide him a loan of Rs 60 lakh to buy all the necessities and support them in this initial period. In 2000, he formally resigned from Tata Motors and decided to focus on his organization Bharat Vikas Pratishthan (BVP), an institution that takes a social approach for providing employment and skill development.
Starting with just eight employees, this company is now offering its services in twenty states. The company has more than 700 clients which includes several prominent companies from abroad. This is also the largest company providing emergency medical services in Asia. Bharat Vikas Group is also responsible for the supervision and cleaning of important places of the country such as Rashtrapati Bhawan, Parlament House, Prime Minister Residence, Delhi High Court etc.
Hanumant, who once struggled for every penny and did odd jobs for years now targets providing employment to 10 lakh people by 2027. He never gave up or accepted his fate but worked hard to successfully achieve this astonishing feat today. His company is currently valued at Rs 1,000 crore.
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