Hindustan Shipyard Limited celebrates founders day

 Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) celebrated Founder’s Day on the occasion of the 136th birth anniversary of its founder Late Seth Walchand Hirachand on Friday. The birth anniversary of the great visionary is being celebrated every year as Founder’s Day in the HSL.

Chairman and Managing Director of HSL Rear Admiral L.V.Sarat Babu paid floral tributes to the founder in presence of employees and members of recognised staff and workers union.

Seth Walchand Hirachand was an Indian industrialist and founder of Walchand group of companies. Born in a Gujarati Jain family and settled in Solapur in the erstwhile Bombay Presidency, he was a man of rare talent and believed that his life’s mission was to free India from the economic bondage. He dedicated his life to make India self-reliant and he fired up with unrelenting enthusiasm to empower people and establish new realities.

Walchand started his business in the fields like construction companies, sugar plantation, sugar factory, confectionery, and engineering companies. Subsequently, as part of his life’s mission, he established India’s first modern shipyard, first aircraft factory, and the first car factory. Many of his business interests were not at all easy to fulfill in those days and situations, as it was British monopoly then.

He believed that there was a strong need for a shipyard in the country and started work on it in 1941 and selected Visakhapatnam on the East Coast as a strategic and ideal location and took possession of land. The truly patriotic Walchand decided that foundation stone for the shipyard should be laid by an Indian leader and Dr. Rajendra Prasad, who was acting Congress President at that time laid the foundation stone, was laid in the thick of the freedom struggle on 21 June 1941.