Late Shri Abhey Kumar Oswal
Building for India. Living for Others.
Shri Abhey Kumar Oswal was the Founder Chairman of Oswal Greentech Limited, formerly Oswal Chemicals & Fertilizers Limited, and of Oswal Agro Mills Limited. He was a builder of enterprises and, in equal measure, a builder of institutions that asked nothing in return.
Born into a distinguished Ludhiana business family as a son of the late Lala Vidya Sagar Oswal, he was a keen learner, an innovator and a leader by instinct. It was his appetite for calculated risk, and his conviction that technologies should be integrated rather than merely adopted, that led him to step beyond the family’s traditional textile business and into grassroots agro-industry. He travelled widely and studied what a modernising India would need before India itself had asked for it — and then he built it.
THE JOURNEY
Agro-Industry Integration & Consumer Brands
In 1983 he carried the business forward through integration into soaps, detergents, fatty acids, glycerine and stearic acid, marketing premium bath soaps under the OASIS, KALPA and 24 CARRATS brands, alongside edible-grade cooking oils and margarine produced at Mandideep, Bhopal.
Agro Complexes, Petrochemicals & Shahjahanpur Urea
In 1986 he established a paddy processing complex at Dhuri, Punjab. In 1987 the Group acquired a sugar complex at Phagwara, creating a uniquely integrated agro-based industry. In 1989 he diversified into petrochemicals, acquiring plants from multinationals including Union Carbide in Mumbai and ICI in Kolkata. In 1995 he entered the chemical fertiliser sector with a grassroots natural-gas-based urea plant of one million tonnes’ annual capacity at Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
Paradip Resilience, Indigenous DAP Plant & ₹2,180 Cr Divestment
In October 1999 a devastating cyclone struck coastal Odisha, including Paradip, where his DAP plant stood. Thousands of lives were lost and many thousands more were left without homes. Shri Abhey Oswal, together with Smt. Aruna Oswal, personally led teams of volunteers from Paradip, providing food, clothing and shelter for the rehabilitation of the affected population. The experience marked him permanently, and he emerged from it a profoundly spiritual man.
He was not deterred. In 2000 he built at Paradip a grassroots, indigenous Di-Ammonium Phosphate fertiliser plant. That plant was sold to IFFCO in 2005 for ₹2,180 crore.
Luxury Real Estate & Centra Greens Foundation
From 2006 he turned to research-led ventures and to real estate, conceiving Centra Greens, a residential project of approximately fifteen lakh square feet at Ludhiana, Punjab. It was in this period that the foundations of the Company’s present business were laid.
THE HUMANITARIAN
“If you do something for humanity the whole world will salute you this is what I want in my life, when you die, die with respect....”
Mata Mohandai Oswal Cancer Hospital (1984) & Free Housing Complex (1989)
Ludhiana, Punjab • Serving 750+ FamiliesIn 1984, together with his brothers, he founded the Mata Mohandai Oswal Cancer Hospital at Ludhiana in memory of their mother; through his efforts it grew into a multi-speciality institution serving the poor and the needy. In 1989 he built a housing complex at Ludhiana for the elderly and for widows in need, providing free accommodation to some 750 families together with facilities for education, healthcare, safe drinking water, sanitation and recreation.
Ambassador of Goodwill & Aruna Abhey Oswal Trust
Highest Award of Lions Club International • 4 Eye Hospitals & Mobile Medical VansHe was honoured with the “Ambassador of Goodwill”, the highest award of Lions Club International. He established the Aruna Abhey Oswal Trust, which continues his work — mobile medical vans carrying primary healthcare and patient education to rural, remote and tribal communities beyond the reach of basic medical aid, and four eye hospitals bearing his father’s name, Lala Vidyasagar Oswal, at Bengaluru, Siliguri, Mumbai and in Punjab.
A Timeless Standard of Conduct
Shri Abhey Kumar Oswal passed away in March 2016.
He left behind an enterprise, but more than that he left behind a way of conducting oneself within it: to look further ahead than the present quarter, to hold courage steady when circumstances turn, and to remember that an industrial house is finally judged by the lives it improves.
At Oswal Greentech Limited, his example remains the standard against which we measure ourselves.