S.S. Patil

In Muddenahalli village, the birthplace of Sir M. Visvesvarayya, a mother tells her child to “study hard and thus emulate Visveswarayya. Likewise, in Kadanganchi village in Aland taluk, a mother might tell her child to “work hard and become like ‘Sahebru’”.

Kadaganchi is, in a manner of speaking, the ‘mother of all villages’ – it exists only in the map. Imagine how it would have been around seven decades back, and that too, in British India. The ‘grandmother’ of all villages! In such a godforsaken place, on a warm, sunny day on the seventh of a typically chilly and cold October, 1939, when India was a mute witness to a world war, Kadaganchi gave birth to a beautiful, smiling, bright-eyed child, born to most probably the only industrialist family of the village. Seven decades hence, one wonders whether it was a different sun shining on that day. Because Shantalingappa Shiva Sharanappa Patil has gone on to become the “Sahebru” of the village, whose name and fame has traveled far and wide across countries, continents, and the globe.

S.S. Patil today presides over an industrial empire that touches the lives of millions of people, day after day. Eg: Millions of people travel by train every day, taking for granted the sturdy and safe comfort of the sleepers in the train. Well, they are manufactured by his company. The Patil Group is the largest supplier of sleepers to the Indian Railways, the world’s largest railway network.

The Patil Group’s core competence is, not so much product quality or client servicing, but its promoter’s vision, business acumen and extraordinary drive. When he took over from his father, Sri S.R. Patil, the company was essentially into trading in pulses and processing. With this background, it required an extraordinary leap of faith for the company to get into a wide gamut of untested territories such as rail track engineering, healthcare, leasing, finance, real estate and entertainment. But Patil junior provided it in full measure. With him at the helm, the Patil Group of companies transformed itself into a giant behemoth mowing down targets and surging ahead, ironically, in an environment that was otherwise inimical to industry.

In early seventies, Patil read an article about deforestation and at that precise moment, his social conscience and business acumen jelled perfectly to give shape to a revolutionary idea at the time. That was how his company became the first to introduce concrete sleepers in trains in 1975 as a substitute for wooden sleepers, which were in vogue till then. As an alternative to wooden sleepers, it succeeded in arresting massive deforestation which would otherwise have taken place.

Patil has always been a lone ranger of sorts. For instance, he was the lone industrialist from the Hyderabad-Karnataka Region to be honoured with the Suvarna Karnataka Award for being one of the best captains of industry. He is the first industrialist from North Karnataka to head the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FKCCI). He has held so many distinguished posts that if he chose to mention all these, his visiting card would resemble a diary! Consider this checklist: Chairman of Patil Group, was, Member of Managing Committee of SBH (for two terms), Board Governor of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, Member of Visiting Board of Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology, Joint Secretary of Sri Sharana Basaveshwara Vidhyavardhaka Sangha, Gulbarga (which runs 36 educational institutions), Vice President of Federation of All India Traders, New Delhi, Senior VP of FKCCI, Chairman of Arvinda Ashram, Gulbarga.

The Patil Group’s activities are spread over the entire East and South of India (in West Bengal, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, AP, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka), and will soon foray into UP, where plans are afoot to set up a factory at Rae Ballery. It also supplies fasteners to Delhi Metro and Chennai Metro Rail, and has several turnkey projects, joint ventures with international tie-ups globally. The group is also the first Indian firm selected for laying ballast-less track system on Jammu-Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla BG rail link project in tunnels, stations, aprons, where the track system is laid on the world’s highest bridges above sea level. The Group provides jobs to over 10,000 people.

A great philanthropist, Sri Patil has donated Rs 5 lakhs to Gulbarga University to impart training for IAS, IPS and IFS to local aspirants. The SR Patil Trust generously donates to mutts, educational institutions, social causes, cultural and religious activities across the country. The Sangam Vidya Mandir, an educational institution set up by the Trust this year, imparts the best quality education in PUC (science and commerce), without burdening the parents of the students with donations.

How did the boy from Kadaganchi create an industry powerhouse touching millions of people, and end up presiding over powwows with international captains of trade at the biggest industrial capitals of the world, from New York, Paris and Germany to France, China, Japan, and South Korea? The answer, he says is “two words”: “Hard work”.

You look at him, feeling a sense of incompleteness, waiting for a little more business gyan. Sri Patil smiles and says, “There’s no substitute for it.” Throw away the get-rich-quick bestsellers. This Karmayogi’s two words are worth more than all these put together.