IndiaPost.com - Votary of 'hurtful' competition

India Post News Service A heavy list of honors follows the name of Lord Swraj Paul, the Jalandhar born UK based business magnate and philanthropist. But the septugenarian, after handing over change of his expanidng Caparo Group of comapies to his sons, is now focussed on his pet project - the progress of India.

He is greatly enthused by the strides India's economy has taken but feels this growth will be unacceptable if 35 percent of its people continue to merely subsist on less than a dollar a day and children are denied basic education.

This September he was in India to formally inaugurate the Punjab Technical University-Caparo School of Excellence for Manufacturing and Material Technology in his hometown Jalandhar.

The school, a unique gift to the city, is his first initiative towards fostering entrepreneurship in India by catalyzing, accelerating and supporting the growth of manufacturing and materials technology. At a lecture later organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), he felt 'India must grapple with and find credible answers to problems of educating its masses, proving healthcare to them and tackling the menace of corruption."

He was emphatic that the phenomenon of globalization was unstoppable, but it would prove meaningless without free movement of people along with merchandise. "Competition should be of a level that it hurts.

That alone will help produce better and cheaper products," he opined. "Let us create confidence in business and trade that it is possible to take on international majors. Let us create the attitude and mindset to make things happen."

Lord Paul was awarded the Padma Bhushan by Indira Gandhi in 1983 and the Bharat Gaurav award by the Indian Merchant's Chamber. He holds the Pro-Chancellorship of Thames Valley University (1998) and its Governorship (1992-97), and the Chancellorship of the University of Wolverhampton and the University of Westminster.

He is a member of the Foreign Policy Centre Advisory Council and MIT's Mechanical Engineering Visiting Committee. He is the chairman of the Olympic Delivery Committee with the key task of initiating measures to acquire land and provide infra-structure for the London Olympics 2012.

Being a member of the governing body of the prestigious Royal Albert Hall and chairman of the Olympic delivery committee are two of the roles that excite him a lot. He also gives a lot of his time to the activities of the Ambika Paul Foundation, a charitable trust set up in the memory of his daughter Ambika who died of leukaemia in 1968 when she was four years old.

In his 1998 book, 'Beyond Boundaries - A Memoir' he describes how the illness of Ambika took him to UK where he ultimately settled down. "The story of Ambika is an inexplicable tragedy," Swraj recounts. She "was an enchanting child, lively and intelligent beyond her years," but she was born with leukemia. In 1966, Swraj and Aruna managed to get the necessary foreign exchange to take Ambika to London for treatment.

For a year and more, she lingered on with spells of normalcy followed by bouts of illness and hospitalization - until she passed away in 1968. This was a poignant and traumatic event in the life of Swraj and Aruna. They decided not to return to India but "to make a new beginning and a new home in England... Another life dawned... I returned to work.

In small steps and incremental advances Caparo came into being." His company's forays into India were initially thwarted. In his book he relates how Paul's acquisition of a large number of shares in two well-known Indian companies - DCM, controlled by the Shriram family, and Escorts, controlled by H.P. Nanda, had to be returned. Swraj feels industrial growth is the main driver that will help remove poverty from the country.

He says he is very excited about his India plans. The $1.5 billion group is growing very rapidly in India and hopes to achieve a turnover of £240 million in the country by 2009. Although he has himself cut down on hectic travel schedules, he is very happy his son Angad travels to India every six weeks.

Angad, he feels, loves India the most. "Also because the business is expanding rapidly and there are 16 plants already in India with 16 more to be added by 2009," he states proudly.