Rai Bahadur RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terr ...

Sir Badridas Goenka CIE (29 July 1883 – 26 February 1973) was an Indian industrialist and business tycoon who served as the Chairman of the

Imperial Bank of India The Imperial Bank of India (IBI) was one of the oldest and the largest commercial bank of the Indian subcontinent, and was subsequently transformed into the State Bank of India in 1955. Initially, as per its royal charter, it acted as the ce ...

from 1933 to 1955 and the first Chairman of the

State Bank of India State Bank of India (SBI) is an Indian multinational public sector bank and financial services statutory body headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. SBI is the 49th largest bank in the world by total assets and ranked 221st in the '' Fort ...

upon its formation in 1955.

Early life and education

Badridas Goenka was born on 29 July 1883 in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...

to Ramachandra Goenka. The Goenkas were a Marwari family which hailed from

Dundlod Dundlod is a town in Nawalgarh tehsil Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan in India. It is situated in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. Its old name was 'Shivgarh'. Best known for its fort and havelis. It is also known as 'Education town'. It is ...

Rajputana Rājputana, meaning "Land of the Rajputs", was a region in the Indian subcontinent that included mainly the present-day Indian state of Rajasthan, as well as parts of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and some adjoining areas of Sindh in modern-day ...

. His elder brother was Hariram Goenka and younger brother was Ghanshyam Das Goenka. In 1905, Badridas graduated from the

Presidency College, Calcutta Presidency University, Kolkata (formerly known as Presidency College, Kolkata) is a second major public state aided research university located in College Street, Kolkata. Considered as one of best colleges when Presidency College was affilia ...

- he was the first Marwari to graduate. In college, Badridas developed an interest in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

and chemistry. He married Manorama in 1899.

Career

Badridas joined the family business after graduation and was in 1910, elected Secretary of the Marwari Association. In 1923, Badridas was nominated over his rival G. D. Birla to the Marwari reserved seat in the Imperial Legislative Council of India. This resulted in an uncompromising political rivalry between the two. However, in 1930, Goenka declined an offer to be a part of the Viceroy's executive council. In 1928, Badridas was part of the Hilton-Young Commission which investigated the financial situation in India. In 1930, he was appointed a director of the Imperial Bank of India and in 1933, he became Chairman, the first Indian to hold the post. He was elected for a second term in 1941 and subsequently, served till 1955, when the Imperial Bank of India was nationalized and became the State Bank of India. Badridas served as the first Chairman of the State Bank of India from 1955 to 1957.

Later life

Badridas patched up with his old opponent G. D. Birla in the early 1940s and joined his Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry of which Badridas became President in 1945. During the Bengal Famine, the two worked together to provide relief measures in the affected areas. When his term as President of FICCI came to an end, Badridas retired from all business and voluntary associations. In his later years, Badridas increasingly transferred his responsibilities to his son K. P. Goenka. Badridas died on 26 February 1973. His death was mourned at a special meeting of the prominent citizens of Calcutta.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Goenka, Badridas 1883 births 1973 deaths Businesspeople awarded knighthoods Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire Knights Bachelor Indian Knights Bachelor Presidency University, Kolkata alumni Goenka Family Rai Bahadurs