Jamsetji N. Tata was born a little more than 125 years ago on 3 March 1839 and was educated at Elphinstone College, Bombay. He joined his father’s trading firm in 1858 and had an outstandingly successful business career during which he made a massive contribution to India‘s industrial development. He set up cotton mills in Bombay and Nagpur and founded the Tata Iron and Steel Company which is among the largest integrated steel mills in the world. He planned the utilization of hydroelectric power which resulted in the formation, after his death, of the Tata Power Companies which supply electric power to Bombay city and the surrounding areas.
Jamsetji Tata‘s contribution to India‘s industrial advance was monumental. Even when the country was under foreign rule he had the vision to realize the importance of modern industry for giving a better life to the people. His activities were many-sided. He introduced sericulture into India, founded the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, and applied scientific techniques to the cultivation of cotton and other crops.
He freely donated his wealth to worthy causes and is best remembered for the munificent endowment which he established for the advanced professional and technical training of Indians abroad. He was a man of high social ideals and was a pioneer in his enlightened attitude towards labour. Jamsetji died on the 19 May, 1904. In the words of our late Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru he was, “one of the great founders of modern India” and there cannot be a more succinct yet fuller tribute.
Source: Information Brochure of Commemorative Postage Stamp issued by Department of Posts.