Karsanbhai Patel-The Founder of the Nirma group

KarsanbhaiKhodidas Patel is the founder of the Nirma group. It deals with detergents, soaps and cosmetics. Karsanbhai Patel founded the Nirma Institute of Pharmacy and Nirma Institute of Technology which are the leading pharmacy college and leading engineering college respectively. He has served as Chairman of the Development Council for Oils, Soaps and Detergentstwice. Today Nirma has been the leading company with $ 500 Million. As an Indian industrialist he established business theories and rewrote new ones. He is now ranked in the India’s richest persons list by the Forbes magazine.

Early Life
Karsanbhai was born in the year 1945 in Ruppur, Gujarat. He belonged to a farmer’s family. He pursued B.Sc. in Chemistry. He worked as a lab technician in New Cotton Mills in Ahmedabad which belonged to Lalbhai group. Later he worked at the Geology and Mining Department of the state Government. He started manufacturing detergent powder which he used to make in his backyard and sold after office hours getting door to door. For him it was an instant success. He branded the name Nirma after his daughter. Three years later he quit the job and set up a shop in small workshop in Ahmedabad suburb. The brand was established in Gujrat and Maharashtra.


Nirma created a new segment in revolutionizing the detergent market. The detergent was a high quality product with low price. During this time, the detergent and soap manufacture market was dominated by multinational corporations with products like Surf by Hindustan Lever which was known as the domestic detergent sector market. In a decade it established the leadership in economy-priced detergents. Karsanbhai produced the product such that it was very environment friendly without the use of phosphates. He launched the Nirma bath and Nirma beauty soap, and premium detergent Super Nirma detergent. He ventured into shampoo and toothpaste which were not so successful. He later started the edible salt known as Shudh. Nirma has become a successful venture in other countries too.
In the year 1995, he started the Nirma Education and Research Foundation along with Nirma Institute of Pharmacy and Nirma Institute of Technology. The Nirmalabs education project was a special project which aimed for training and incubating entrepreneurs.Today, his sons and son-in-law have taken the leading positions in the organization. His sons Rakesh and Hiren look after procurement and logistics and head the marketing and finance. His son in law looks after the human resources and Healthcare Industry which is the Nirlife healthcare. In the year 2013, he bought a six-seater chopper which worth about 40 Crores.


Awards
In 1990, he was conferred by UdyogRatna award by the Federation of Association of Small Scale Industries of India (FASII) in New Delhi.
He was felicitated by the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce as an Outstanding Industrialist of the Eighties.
In 2001, he was awarded the honorary doctorate by Florida Atlantic University for his exceptional entrepreneurial and philanthropic accomplishments.
In 2010, he received the Padma Shri Award by the President of India.