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Success Story of Dhirubhai Ambani
How rich do you think this boy who is running a pakoda shop can become by working hard? Maybe in future he will open a big restaurant or maybe after earning money he will build a big two-storey house. What more can he do? This is it right? You might also be thinking the same thing, but friends, this is the boy who later became the richest man in entire India. Name is Dhirubhai Ambani.
So how did this poor boy selling pakodas create a company with a turnover of Rs 75 thousand crores? In today’s Blog we are going to know this in depth story. then it will definitely bring change in your life. So friends, this story starts from 28 December 1932 when Dhirajlal Hiralal Ambani was born in a middle class family of Chorwa village of Gujarat and this simple looking boy later became famous by the name of Dhirubhai Ambani.
His father Hirachand Govardhan Bhai Ambani used to teach children in the village school and in a similar manner, when Dhirubhai Ambani turned five years old, he was admitted to Bahadur Khan Ji School. Although Dhirubhai Ambani had no special attachment to studies, yet due to fear of his father, he had to go to school even if he did not want to. Because Hirachand ji had a total of five children and as he As he was growing up, he started facing a lot of problems in running his household with his school salary.
And friends, being troubled by this poverty and hardship, one day Dhirubhai Ambani decided that now he will leave studies and do some work. Although Hirachand was very angry with this decision of his son and tried to send him back to school, but he also gave up in front of Dhirubhai’s stubbornness. Now friends, Dhirubhai wanted to work here but he was not able to understand what to do and in this way he kept roaming here and there in search of work and then at the same time he reached a temple in his village.
He saw that the temple complex, which was usually deserted, was very crowded today. When we inquired, we came to know that this crowd gathers every year in the month of February due to some ancient belief. Now seeing such a large number of devotees, Dhirubhai thought that these people standing here must be feeling hungry. Why not take advantage of this opportunity and sell pakoras here.
And friends, till now whatever little pocket money Dhirubhai got from his father, he used to deposit it in a piggy bank. But now the time had come to break that piggy bank. Without any delay, he broke the piggy bank and took out the money, bought a cart with it and started selling pakodas near the temple. Now friends, initially he got a lot of profit from this business, but after some time, when the number of devotees started decreasing, then his income also became almost negligible.
, In such a situation, he felt that there was no use in wasting time here. That’s why he sold his cart and deposited all the money in the bank. Later, he again started looking for some work and then during that time he saw that many people were going to work in Yemen and the financial condition of those who had gone there before today had become much better. But what was the reason behind this? On finding the answer to this, Dhirubhai Ambani came to know that Yemen makes many times more money than India.
That is why Dhirubhai Ambani went to Yemen during the 1950s at the age of just 17 to join his elder brother Ramnik Lal. After reaching there, Ramnik Lal got Dhirubhai Ambani a job at the petrol pump of A, B, C & Company and while working here, his salary was ₹ 300 per month. Now friends, while working at this petrol pump, Dhirubhai Ambani used to encourage people through different promotional methods to get petrol worth as much money as possible.
Now friends, because of his doing this, the revenue of the petrol pump increased a lot and after being happy with his work, he was made the manager of the petrol pump. Now, because of the promotion, Dhirubhai had a lot of time left even after working at the petrol pump, so he thought why not do a job in this free time and then thinking like this, he got a job as a clerk at a place. Also started working as.
Now friends, no matter if we go to any corner of the Indian world, we cannot change our tea habit and Dhirubhai also loved drinking tea. Now, for this he had two options, either he could drink tea for ₹ 0.10 on the roadside or for ₹ 1 in a five star hotel. But here Dhirubhai chose only ₹ 1 tea so that while sipping the tea, he could listen to the talks of the rich people around him and know what they do to become so rich.
One such day, when he was drinking tea, he heard the conversation of two people sitting at the table next to him, in which one person was telling the other that do you know that the silver Riyal coins in our Yemen have coins in them? The price of silver is more than 30 riyals. That means there is silver worth ₹ 110 in ₹ 100 coins. If someone melts it and takes it out, then he will have money only. Now, although these rich people were just joking about this, Dhirubhai took it seriously.
He bought a machine and then started melting millions of coins. As Dhirubhai’s work progressed, there was a shortage of coins in the market and the government was also worried about where these coins were going. And friends, when the government formed an investigation team to investigate this matter, Dhirubhai Ambani’s name came up. However, by the time the police reached his hideout, Dhirubhai had collected all the money and left for India. This year was 1958.
When Dhirubhai returned home and his father heard that he had left the job, he became very angry. Relatives also criticized a lot but still he did not pay attention to anyone’s words. Friends, after returning from Yemen and spending some time in the village, he married Kokila Ben and then went to Mumbai to start his business. In 1958 itself, he opened an office named Reliance Commercial Corporation with a capital of Rs 50 thousand and started trading in spices.
After some time, he came to know that instead of spices, he would be more profitable if he traded yarn. But the problem was that he did not have enough money for this business. Therefore, he thought of doing business with his cousin Champaklal Damani, who earlier used to live with him in Yemen. But when he tried to enter this industry, he came to know that the traders here have formed a union and together they do not allow any new trader to enter this industry.
And even if someone wants to intervene, he has to take permission from the union leader. In this way, entering a new field had become quite challenging for Dhirubhai Ambani. Although after a lot of hard work, he got this permission, but after this he came to know that the factory from which he was purchasing the suits had also formed a union and those to whom the final product was sold also had a separate union. In this way, all of them together were robbing these middle class traders.
Because on one hand, the factory owners were selling the suits at an expensive price and on the other hand, they were buying them cheaply from the buyers. Dhirubhai and many businessmen like him were incurring losses. After seeing all this, Dhirubhai took a big step. Took it and gathered all the members of our union and decided that we would all buy goods from the factory at a cheaper price.
Will pick it up and sell it at a higher price so that we too can get our rightful profit. However, on doing this, many big businessmen of Mumbai got angry and that is why they paid money to an IAS officer and got the place locked where bids for purchases were made. But friends. Dhirubhai Ambani’s brain was also less than anyone else’s. When he saw the warehouse locked, to express his protest, he along with the union members kept all his goods in front of the house of the same IAS officer.
Now in a few hours, senior officials were going to come to the house of that IAS officer and if they had seen the sacks scattered in front of the house, then they would have come to know about the activities of the IAS officer. For this reason, to save his job, that IAS officer got the lock opened within a few minutes and the business of all those traders including Dhirubhai started running again.
Now friends, till a few years later everything was going well, but then disputes started between Champaklal Damani and Dhirubhai Ambani. In fact, the business mindset of both was very different. Therefore, in 1965, Champaklal Damani thought of ending the partnership and then both of them separated. In 1966, Dhirubhai Ambani started textile mills in Naroda, Gujarat and from here he never looked back.
At the same time, the government brought replacement license, under which traders could import cheap fabric from outside countries. But the condition was that something new would have to be made from it and exported back to another country. Here Dhirubhai Ambani showed his cleverness and bought foreign fabric with all his savings and then started making different types of outfits like t-shirts, shawls and shorts from it.
The brand name for this new business was Vimal, which was named after Vimal Ambani, son of his elder brother Ramnik Lal Ambani. Now the machines were installed. Clothing was also produced in large quantities. But to stop them from entering the market, other textile owners made a move. Actually he had told all his retailers that if you bought goods from Dhirubhai Ambani then he would not give them goods in future. But friends, even this conspiracy of other textile owners could not stop Dhirubhai Ambani.
Dhirubhai traveled across the country and convinced retailers to buy goods from him only. He promised all the retailers that if there is a loss then they will come to him and if there is a profit then they will keep it with themselves. Dhirubhai’s words also appealed to the wholesale traders and they bought a lot of clothes from him. Now since the quality of polyester was much better than other brands present in the market, the demand for Vimal’s clothes started increasing very rapidly.
And friends, an occasion came when 100 showrooms of Vimal were inaugurated across the country in a single day and Vimal became the number one polyester brand of that time. Apart from this, when the World Bank team inspected Dhirubhai’s textile mill in Naroda, they called it the best textile mill in India. Besides, the clothes made here proved to be excellent even on the standards of developed countries.
But friends, this journey was not so easy for Dhirubhai Ambani because when his competitors came to know that Dhirubhai Ambani was taking unfair advantage of the replacement, then they filed a case against Dhirubhai Ambani. After this, Dhirubhai Ambani clarified that where is it written in the conditions that after importing goods from outside countries, only hundred percent of the product has to be exported. In fact, Dhirubhai Ambani used to send some part of the clothes made from foreign fabric to the foreign market and then keep the rest for domestic use.
And friends, his business also got a lot of profit from this strategy. Along with this, Vimal was successful in making a good name for himself in the country as well as abroad. After the success in this area, Dhirubhai Ambani gradually started expanding his business into many other sectors. On 8 May 1973, the name of the company was changed from Reliance Commercial Corporation to Reliance Textile Industries Limited and its annual turnover increased to ₹70 crore between 1976 and 1977.
Now friends, January 1978 came when Dhirubhai Ambani thought of bringing the first IPO of independent India and then listed his company on Bombay and Ahmedabad Stock Exchange. 10. An IPO of eight million equity shares was offered at the share price, on which investors expressed great confidence and 58 thousand investors invested in it.
People earned huge profits from this stock and it became so popular that when the company’s annual shareholder meeting was held in 1986, 30 thousand shareholders attended it, which became a record in Indian corporate history. The amazing thing was that at that time there was not a single hall in Bombay that could hold the capacity of so many people. For this reason this meeting was organized in a field. In 1980, Dhirubhai Ambani opened a polyester fiber yarn factory in Patalganga, Maharashtra and after much effort, obtained a license from the government for the production of oil. In this way, Dhirubhai Ambani, who worked at a petrol pump, got his own oil production company.
After this came 16 February 1986, when Dhirubhai had his first heart attack. Actually he told his son Mukesh Ambani that he was having severe back pain and he had become conscious before he could be taken to the hospital. Now when Mukesh Ambani took him to the hospital in panic, the doctors said that the next 42 hours are very critical for him. But friends, despite being in such a serious condition, as soon as he regained consciousness, he looked at his son and said, don’t worry son, I will fix everything.
After this stroke, one of Dhirubhai Ambani’s hands was paralyzed but Dhirubhai Ambani decided that it would not become his weakness. That is why for three consecutive months he exercised a lot, paid full attention to his diet and changed his lifestyle. The effect of this was that Dhirubhai’s hand became much better than before. Now friends, later on, Dhirubhai Ambani entered a golden era when his businesses started expanding rapidly in many sectors.
Actually in 1992, Dhirubhai Ambani did what the big Indian companies of that time had not even dreamed of. In fact, this year the company also started raising funds from the global market and Reliance became the first company in the country to do so. In the year 1995-96, Dhirubhai Ambani started his telecom company Reliance Telecom Private Limited in India in collaboration with INX USA. After this, during 1998 to 2000, Dhirubhai Ambani opened the world’s largest refinery, Petrochemicals, in Jamnagar, Gujarat.
And friends, by this time Dhirubhai Ambani’s name had become so big that he started getting popularity in the country as well as abroad. This popularity increased even more when in the years 1996, 98 and 2000 i.e. for three years, he was included in the list of Power Fifty Most Powerful People in Asia by Asia Week magazine. This was a matter of great pride for India and due to this other countries also started getting an idea about the potential of India.
Not only this, on June 15, 1998, Dhirubhai Ambani became the first Indian to be awarded the Dean’s Medal from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania for excellent leadership. Apart from this, in 1999, Dhirubhai Ambani was also honored with the Businessman of the Year Award and in 2001, The Economic Times gave him the Lifetime Achievement Award. And friends say that even though only Dhirubhai Ambani got all these awards and honors, his wife Kokilaben also had a hand in his success.
Actually, when Dhirubhai Ambani shifted to Mumbai, he asked Kokilaben to learn English so that she could also help him in business. Apart from this, whenever Dhirubhai Ambani went to start any new work, he would definitely ask for Kokilaben’s opinion on it. And friends, it is the result of such support and hard work that Dhirubhai Ambani, who started by selling spices and polyester, had become one of the richest people of the country by two thousand years.
He started his business with a room of 350 square feet and within no time Reliance started being counted among the top companies of the country. It is said that Ambani lived a very disciplined life to fulfill his dream. He also fixed his working hours and never worked for more than 10 hours. But after the first heart attack, his health started deteriorating continuously. Due to which he had to visit hospitals every few days.
But friends, that day of June 24, 2002 again came when Dhirubhai Ambani again suffered a fatal stroke and was admitted to Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai. Here the doctors tried a lot but even after continuous treatment, there was no improvement in his condition and that is why finally on July 6, 2002, at the age of 69, he said goodbye to the world and handed over the empire of billions to his sons.
Left for. At the time of his death, the company’s turnover had reached Rs 75 thousand crores and Reliance had also made its place in the Global Fortune 500 list. The amazing thing is that even after achieving so much wealth and fame, he lived a very simple life and never forgot his path. It was almost impossible for a humble pakoda seller to start from zero and build an empire that would last for many generations. But Dhirubhai Ambani made this work.
Anyway, see you again with the powerful explanation of the Success Story.
