Om Prakash Jindal (7 August 1930 – 31 March 2005), also known as O. P. Jindal, was an Indian

industrialist A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...

and politician. He was the founder of the OP Jindal Group, a major steel and power conglomerate.

Early life and education

Jindal was born in the village of Nalwa in

Hisar district Hisar district is one of the 22 districts of Haryana, India. Hisar city serves as the district headquarters. Hisar district has four sub-divisions that is, Hisar, Barwala, Hansi and Narnaud, each headed by an SDM. The district is also part of ...

Haryana Haryana () is a States and union territories of India, state located in the northern part of India. It was carved out after the linguistic reorganisation of Punjab, India, Punjab on 1 November 1966. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with les ...

to a farmer family. He began his elementary education in his village but later continued it in the nearby town of

Hansi Hansi, is a city and municipal council in Hisar district in the Indian state of Haryana. It appears that at one time Hansi was larger, more prosperous and more important than Hisar. The town has several important buildings of archeological impor ...

. As a teenager, he was into bodybuilding and considered becoming a wrestler in Haryana's heartland. However, his parents sent him to Calcutta, along with his elder brothers, due to irregular monsoon patterns and constant disputes over land ownership, to learn the basics of wholesale and retail textile trading, as Eastern India was a hub of commerce at the time.

Career

Business career

At 20, Jindal began his entrepreneurial journey by moving to

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

, where he worked as a trader dealing in steel pipes and tubes. He traded in iron and transported surplus pipes from

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

to sell in Calcutta, much of which came from metal left behind by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Tenth Air Force The Tenth Air Force (10 AF) is a unit of the U.S. Air Force, specifically a numbered air force of the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC). 10 AF is headquartered at Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base/Carswell Field (formerly Carswel ...

after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. By the age of 22 in 1952, he set up a factory in

Liluah Liluah (also spelled Lillooah) is a neighbourhood in Howrah of Howrah district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). Liluah has ...

Howrah Howrah (; ; alternatively spelled as Haora) is a city in the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River, opposite to its twin city of Kolkata. Administratively ...

to make pipe bends and sockets by using waste pipe products from Tata's Jamshedpur factory and Kalinga Tubes' Cuttack factory. In 1964, he expanded his ventures by founding Jindal India Limited, a full-fledged pipe-production company. Five years later, he established another factory in Calcutta. He went on to establish Jindal Steel and Power,

JSW Group JSW Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate, based in Mumbai. It is led by Sajjan Jindal and founded by Om Prakash Jindal. The group's diverse businesses include steel, energy, infrastructure, cement, automotive and paints, across In ...

and

Jindal Stainless Limited Jindal Stainless Limited is an Indian stainless steel maker headquartered in New Delhi. It is a part of OP Jindal Group. The firm has a melt capacity of 2.9 million tonnes per annum which makes it the largest stainless steel producer of India. ...

under the flagship of the OP Jindal Group, of which he was the founding chairman. In November 2004, Jindal was awarded the "Life Time Achievement Award" for his outstanding contribution to the Indian steel industry by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry. According to the 2004

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

List, he was ranked 13th amongst the richest Indians and 548th amongst the richest persons in the world. Before his death in a helicopter crash in 2005, Jindal divided his businesses among his four sons - Prithviraj Jindal,

Sajjan Jindal Sajjan Jindal (born 5 December 1959) is an Indian billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and managing director of JSW Group of companies; diversified in steel, mining, energy, sports, infrastructure and, software business. For 2021–22, ...

, Ratan Jindal and

Naveen Jindal Naveen Jindal (born 9 March 1970) is an Indian industrialist, politician, and philanthropist. He is the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power and serves as the Founding Chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University. He represents the Kurukshetra ...

, structuring it with cross-holdings to ensure mutual benefit and shared growth. To maintain family unity, his wife,

Savitri Jindal Savitri Devi Jindal (born 20 March 1950) is an Indian businesswoman and politician. She is the chairperson emeritus of the O.P. Jindal Group. She is also the president of Maharaja Agrasen Medical College, Agroha. As of June 2024, the Jindal fa ...

, was appointed chairperson of the OP Jindal Group and its companies.

Political career

Jindal first won election from Haryana's Hisar Assembly constituency and was elected to the

Haryana Legislative Assembly The Haryana Legislative Assembly (ISO: ''Hariyāṇā Vidhāna Sabhā'') is the unicameral legislature of the Indian state of Haryana. The seating of the assembly is at Chandigarh, the capital of the state. There are seats in the house fil ...

in 1991 under the

Haryana Vikas Party Haryana Vikas Party (HVP) (translation: Haryana Development Party) was a political party in the Indian state of Haryana. Its president was Bansi Lal and general secretary Chaudhary Surender Singh. After parted company with Congress in 1996, B ...

. Later, he got re-elected again in 2000, and 2005 under different parties. He also contested and won the 1996 Lok Sabha election from Haryana's

Kurukshetra Lok Sabha constituency Kurukshetra is one of the 10 Lok Sabha (parliamentary) constituencies in Haryana state in India. This constituency covers the entire Kurukshetra and Kaithal districts and part of Yamunanagar district. Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat was initially ...

. He served as

Government of Haryana Government of Haryana, also known as the State Government of Haryana, or locally as the Haryana Government, is the supreme governing authority of the Indian state of Haryana and its 22 districts. It consists of an executive, ceremonially led ...

's Minister of Power at the time of his death and had previously served on the Committee on Food, Civil Supplies, and Public Distribution from 1996 to 1997. After his demise, his widow, Savitri Jindal, contested the election for the same seat (Hisar Assembly) her husband had held and was elected, subsequently being appointed as the Minister of State for Revenue, Disaster Management, Rehabilitation, and Housing in the Haryana's state government. While his son Naveen was elected from the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat as an

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

candidate in 2004 and re-elected in 2009, but he lost in the 2014 general election. Later, he joined the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

in 2024 and won the Indian general election.

Personal life and death

Jindal had six children with his first wife Vidya Devi, who died at the age of 34. Shortly after her death, he married her younger sister Savitri. They had three children together. Jindal died in a helicopter crash on 31 March 2005. On 7 August 2005, then Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, released the biography of Om Prakash Jindal titled ''The Man Who Talked to Machines: The Story of Om Prakash Jindal''.

References