Kalpana Saroj - India's original Slumdog Billionaire

You could call her India's real life slumdog billionaire. Kalpana Saroj, a Dalit woman who broke social shackles and left her ramshackle home in the poorest part of her village 26 years ago to begin life afresh, today heads a Rs.3 billion (Rs.300 crore/$60 million) business enterprise.

From the daughter of a Dalit police havaldar in Vidarbha's Akola district to chairmanship of a Rs68 crore company, it has been an eventful journey for Kalpana Saroj. To her credit is the revival of the defunct Kamani Tubes Limited.

Today, Saroj presides over her building construction, sugar, steel and brass-tubes manufacture business. She has no elitist education or background to speak of, yet the wall behind her table has photographs of her with international celebrities. Among them is a photo of her first meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Her life is indeed a saga of struggle, hard work and resultant success. Married off at 12 to a 22-year-old man, Saroj fled the violence of abusive in-laws within months of her marriage and returned to her parents in village Ruparkheda. She resolved to complete her schooling and "make something of her life".

She tried joining the police force at age 13, but failed. Downcast, she tried her hand at nursing, tailoring and other odd jobs but only succeeded in antagonising the villagers by these attempts 'to step beyond her social boundaries'.

Finally, at 22, she left Ruparkheda for Mumbai. She married again, but in 1989, her husband died. All that she inherited was an ailing steel-cupboard manufacture business. By sheer dint of effort, the mother-of-two revived the sick firm. One thing led to another. Saroj dabbled with politics, started a construction company, made profits, bought sugar and steel mills and determined her own path to prosperity.

In 2002, she saw workers at the defunct Kamani Tubes Limited dying of poverty and sickness. In March 2006, she bid for and bought the company with accumulated debts of Rs160 crore including unpaid wages of Rs 50 crore.

"I have seen poverty. I have risen out of it myself. So I was confident I could improve their lot," says Saroj.

"The government had given Saroj madam three years to pay our accumulated wages of Rs50 crore. She paid them off in three months and added an ex-gratia payment of Rs2.40 crore towards PF and wages till date," says Govind Khatmol, secretary, Kamani Kamgar AU Sahkari Society.

Knowing that money paid in instalments was no good to anyone, Saroj convinced a group of financiers to pay off the workers' dues at one go. "I thought if each man received a lakh or two, he could put it to good use," says Saroj, who is as earthy as they come. Her only concession to vanity is gold ornaments which set off her no-nonsense attire with élan. Saroj has done her share of social work. She speaks with obvious pleasure of her visit to Kargil to encourage the jawans. "Saroj was ready to join the war, but it ended the very next morning. She became the good-luck mascot of the Maratha Regiment," says Manu Gore, her friend and business partner.

Saroj draws her strength from her roots, her painful past and simplicity of Buddhism. "Buddhism says, find your own path. Experience, and then accept it," she says.

Turnaround tale

In 2002, Saroj offered to buy the sick Kamani Tubes Private Ltd, once a brand leader in non-ferrous tubes.

The company had suffered since 1975 with internecine feuds and litigation. Working long hours at half pay took its toll on the 566 company workers. The company finances deteriorated further. In early 1997, Kamani Tubes ceased production. Ninety-three workers died of penury.

On March 21, 2006, Saroj bought the company. Between June 15 to 18, 2006, she paid off workers' dues and provident fund claims and even gave them ex-gratia payments.