English Literature – Article ☆ – Meet the man with 27,500 daughters ☆ Compiled by – Mr Sunil Deshpande ☆

Mr Sunil Deshpande 

☆ Article ☆ Meet the man with 27,500 daughters ☆ Mr Sunil Deshpande ☆

Mr. KP Ramaswamy

(Meet the man with 27,500 daughters. That’s what they call him – Appa)

His real name? KP Ramaswamy. Owner of KPR Mills, Coimbatore. A textile baron by profession. A father figure by choice.

While corporate honchos talk about employee retention, cost-cutting, and bottom lines, this man is busy transforming lives.

How? By turning mill workers into graduates. By making education their steppingstone to a better life.

It all started with a simple request. A young girl at his mill once told him –

“Appa, I want to study. My parents pulled me out of school because of poverty, but I want to study further.”

That one sentence changed everything.

Instead of giving his workers just a paycheck, he decided to give them a future.

He set up a full-fledged education system – right inside the mill.

Four-hour classes after an eight-hour shift.

Classrooms, teachers, a principal, even a yoga course.

All fully funded. No strings attached.

 And the result?

24,536 women have earned their 10th, 12th, UG, and PG degrees.

Many are now nurses, teachers, police officers.

20 gold medallists from Tamil Nadu Open University this year alone.

Now, you’d expect a businessman to worry about attrition. What if these women leave? What about workforce stability?

Here’s what KP Ramaswamy says –

“I don’t want to keep them in the mill and waste their potential. They are here because of poverty, not by choice. My job is to give them a future, not a cage.”

And that’s exactly what he does….

They leave. They build careers. And then? They send more girls from their villages to the mill. The cycle continues.

This isn’t just a CSR initiative. This is Human Resource Development in its truest sense.

 At a recent convocation, 350 women received their degrees. And KP Ramaswamy made an unusual request –

“If you or your friends can hire them, it will give other girls the hope to study further.”

Think about it. A man running a multi-crore empire isn’t asking for business. He’s asking for jobs – for his workers.

How often do we see this?

This story isn’t just about KPR Mills. It’s a lesson in leadership, in corporate ethics, in nation-building.

B-Schools should teach this.

HR professionals should study this.

And the world needs to know this.

A story worth spreading.

****

Compiled by –  Mr Sunil Deshpande 

Nasik Mo – 9657709640 Email : sunil68deshpande@outlook.com