Karmayogi

SANDIPAN DEB

First published by Hitech Print Systems Limited in 2020
153, Sithanilayam, Dwarakapuri Colony, Punjagutta,
Hyderabad 500 082
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Copyright © Sri Vishnu Educational Society, 2020
ISBN 978-93-85100-27-7
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2

Dedicated to all the generations who go through
these temples of learning, not only for professional
accomplishments, but to be responsible, caring citizens.
3

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CONTENTS
FOREWORD 6
THE BOY FROM KUMUDAVALLI 9
THE KARMAYOGI 20
THE ENTREPRENEUR 41
THE HUMANITARIAN 81
THE EDUCATIONIST 103
THE LEGACY 126
5

FOREWORD
“One moment can change a day,
One day can change a life and
One life can change the world”
— Gautama Buddha
KARMAYOGI Sri Bhupatiraju Vissam (BV) Raju lived his entire
life through hard work, making a difference to the many thousands
of lives he touched. On his 100th birth anniversary, we
thought it was imperative to remember and celebrate his life story.
This book has been written with the purpose of preserving the
facts and presenting the story for all generations to come. Every
reader can reflect personally on an incident or a time in his or her
career, find something here from Sri Raju’s extraordinary life that
resonates with it, and take inspiration.
It was our intention to keep the narrative in three distinct
pathways of Sri Raju’s career, the Karmayogi, the Entrepreneur
and the Educationist, as many an individual’s life progresses
along one or more of these paths, and it is easy to relate to.
Socrates believed that one’s philosophy should aim to achieve
practical results for the greater well-being of society. Sri Raju
demonstrated with incomparable diligence and commitment that
one can attain the highest glory in every pathway. And that too
with compassion and empathy, aware at all times about his purpose
and his mission to make the world a better place.
Sri Raju’s biography also defines the values and guiding principles
and sets in stone the foundational virtues of his legacy. His
grandson Vishnu Raju has seamlessly adopted this “Ren” philosophy
and demonstrates an exceptional humaneness in his leader-
6

ship style; this by itself is an interesting story. He continues to
define the tenets for the future of Sri Vishnu Educational Society
and its stakeholders, the faculty, students and the community—tenets
that ensure that the institutions not only produce successful
professionals but also responsible and caring citizens.
Capturing these stories and learnings requires a deft storyteller,
and I was fortunate enough to know Sandipan Deb, my friend
during my IIM Calcutta days. Sandipan‘s unassuming personality
and his track record of 30 years of flawless journalism deemed
him the best person to pen this biography. Being an IITian, his
analytical mind was also what we needed to pay homage to a brilliant
engineer who lives on as a legendary human being.
One hopes that this book will be a timeless inspiration for
young Indians.
Ravichandran Rajagopal
Sri Vishnu Educational Society
7

Karmanye vadhikaraste, ma phaleshou kada chana
Ma karma phala hetur bhurmatey sangostva akarmani.
Thy right is to work only, but never with its fruits
Let not the fruits of action be thy motive, nor let thy
attachment be to inaction.
Bhagavad Gita, 2.47
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or
sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of
God be in that person?
The Gospel of John, 3.17
8

CHAPTER 1
The Boy From Kumudavalli
BHUPATIRAJU VISSAM RAJU was born on 15 October, 1920, in
Kumudavalli village in West Godavari District in Andhra Pradesh
(erstwhile Madras Province) to a Kshatriya family. His father Sri
Venkata Narasimha Raju, who owned a few acres of land, was a
farmer, and his mother, Smt Buchi Rajeswari, was a homemaker.
Sri Raju was the first child the couple were blessed with, to be
followed by a daughter and another son.
The village that Sri Raju was born and spent his childhood in
would have borne little resemblance to the Kumudavalli of today.
Though the nearest town, Bhimavaram, was only about a mile
away, the area was not well-connected to the rest of the country.
Literacy was low, and the population was entirely dependent on
agriculture. In fact, historically, the West Godavari region had
been at a disadvantage due to its topography. It is a flat terrain
with a slight eastern slope along which the rivers of the district
flow. The rivers in the West Godavari district generally flow from
west to east. Much of the water from the mighty Godavari—and
its sisters Yerrakaluva and Tammileru—would flow into the Bay
of Bengal without being used for any productive human activity.
Indeed, both floods and famines were common.
THE VILLAGE
In the 19th century, the British irrigation engineer Sir Arthur
Thomas Cotton decided to do something about this. Among his
many projects, which averted famines and stimulated the economy
of southern India, was what was later named the Sir Arthur
Cotton Barrage, completed in 1850. The dam freed up thousands
9

Bhupati’s parents Sri Venkata Narasimha Raju and Smt Buchi
Rajeswari. Smt Rajeswari mortgaged her jewellery to pay for Dr B.V.
Raju’s higher education. This would transform his life and guide him in
his later endeavours.
of hectares of land in the West Godavari region for agriculture—
land that had traditionally been prone to floods and had remained
unused. The water could now be stored in reservoirs and the land
could be tilled. And the thousands of ponds and lakes created a
robust aquaculture environment.
Today, Kumudavalli is a thriving village with a population
close to 5,000, with 100 per cent literacy. There is no unemployment
to speak of. Many of its scions are successful executives and entrepreneurs
in India and abroad. It is, in fact, one of the few villages
in India which are ISO 9001:2008 certified.
This transformation owes much to its most illustrious son,
Padma Bhushan Bhupatiraju Vissam Raju.
But we are getting ahead of the story. We started from this little-known
village because it is from here that this extraordinary
man’s life-long pilgrimage began. And Kumudavalli is where his
10

heart would always belong.
When Bhupati had been born, someone in the village had apparently
noticed some signs in the infant and predicted that he
would achieve great heights. Smt Buchi Rajeswari believed this.
She, who had never been to school herself (and perhaps for that
very reason), laid great store on education as the gateway to progress.
The village had only a primary school, where the young boy
was enrolled, and from a very early age, he showed every sign of
being a bright and diligent student. He enjoyed school and displayed
an intense desire to learn more.
But primary schooling was the sum total of all the educational
facilities that Kumudavalli offered at that time. If he had to pursue
further studies, young Bhupati would need to go to the town
of Bhimavaram, and school fees would also need to be paid. The
family was going through a hard time financially, and Sri Venkata
Narasimha Raju did not see much value in spending the little money
he had on sending his son to high school. It perhaps made better
sense if he stayed at home and helped his father in the fields. After
all, most of the boys in Kumudavalli did just that.
There comes a turning point in every person’s life which defines
the trajectory of the rest of his time on this earth—indeed,
defines his persona and principles. In Bhupatiraju Vissam Raju’s
life, that moment definitely came now.
A MOTHER’S SACRIFICE
Smt Buchi Rajeswari knew that there was something special in
her son, that he had not been born to till a small piece of soil like
his ancestors and live a life hostage to the vagaries of seasons and
rivers. She wanted her son to pursue his dreams of higher education
and spread his wings. Smt Buchi convinced her husband that
their child must go to high school and that she would pay for it. She
mortgaged all her gold and received Rs 120 for it. This would be
11

The young Sri
Bhupatiraju with his
cousin Mr Balarama
Raju, who was a close
friend.
(Right) Bhupati with his
parents and brother in
Kumudavalli.
enough to cover all her son’s higher education expenses.
This sacrifice his mother made would be seared into Sri Raju’s
memory and remain a guiding light for him through his life. The
gratitude of a loving son would ultimatey transform the lives of
hundreds of thousands of young men and women.
Young Bhupati enrolled in the Lutheran School in Bhimavaram,
and did his intermediate studies at Bandar College. In the
urban high school, so different from his rather secluded village
environs, he was exposed to students from many strata of society,
including those from the so-called “lower castes”. He had never
thought about this before, and now, he was unable to understand
why some people should be treated differently due to their birth.
Many decades later, Sri Raju reminisced: “I never thought of
upper class or lower class. I used to make friends with downtrodden
students. I very much wanted to help them. I used to have
12

lunch every day with one of my best friends who belonged to a
downtrodden family. When my mother questioned this, I argued
with her that there was nothing wrong with what I was doing.
From that day onwards, my mother used to stuff extra lunch in
my tiffin box.”
According to the custom of the day, he had also been married
off by now. His pre-teen bride Seetha came from the neighbouring
Dirusumarru village, about whom an astrologer had foretold
that she would bring great fortune and happiness to the family she
married into.
Sri Raju’s family believes that the astrologer was absolutely
correct. For 60 years, she was the quiet pillar of strength that he
relied on, as he grew from teenager to titan. In time, the couple
would be blessed with three daughters—Ramavathy, Usha Rani
and Shoba Rani.
13

Raju with his eldest grandchild.
14

BANARAS TO BIHAR
But as he neared the threshold of college education, Bhupati was
faced with the big question that every teenager on the verge of
adulthood faces: the choice of career. He toyed with the idea of
pursuing a BA course, but soon rejected it. He sought advice from
friends and elders, and decided on engineering.
This was, however, easier said than done, even though, in the
intervening years, his family’s financial condition had improved
considerably. There were few engineering colleges in the India of
the 1930s. Then his close friend Jagannadha Raju put him in touch
with his cousin B.H.V.K Raju, who was studying engineering at the
Banaras Hindu University (BHU). B.H.V.K Raju suggested that he
apply to BHU for chemical engineering.
Banaras was a world away from Kumudavalli, but Bhupati
was undeterred. He applied and got an admission. Old-timers in
the village recall that Jagannadha Raju supported Bhupati to go
to Banaras. (They remained lifelong friends, and decades later, Sri
Raju would bear all the expenses for Jagannadha Raju’s last rites
and funeral). B.H.V.K Raju would also become a close associate,
and would eventually rise to be a high official in the Industries
Department in the state government.
Life in BHU was not easy. The village boy from South India had
to learn new languages, adapt to North Indian food and other customs,
and there was little money left over after the fees and mess
bills had been paid to enjoy life as a young man may have wanted
to. But Bhupati had always believed in austerity. Even when he
would earn great fame and fortune in later life as a captain of industry,
his friends and associates would be constantly amazed by
his frugal lifestyle and rejection of all physical comfort beyond the
bare necessities.
In 1941, Bhupati graduated from BHU with a BSc in Chemical
Technology.
15

When Bhupati graduated from BHU in 1941, the Second World War
was on, and there were hardly any jobs to be found. He had to work as a
railway guard for some time.
But his struggle was far from over. He had been advised by his
well-wisher Kolusu Rama Kotaiah that the cement industry had a
great future, so this was his preference. But the Second World War
was on, and there were hardly any jobs to be found. In any case,
most engineering jobs were held by Britishers. Indians were not
considered sufficiently bright or dependable.
To make ends meet, Bhupati had to work for a few months as a
railway guard. Finally a daily-wage job opening appeared at Sone
Valley Cement in Bihar, incidentally owned by the Dalmia industrial
group, with whom he would have a long attachment later in
his career. The salary was a meagre 75 paise a day, but it was at
least a technical job in the cement industry, and his objective was
to learn as much as he could about cement.
Even at the lowly level that he was working, Bhupati could visualise
the vital strategic importance that cement would have in
the future. Cement would one day rule the world, he told himself.
He got down to familiarising himself with every detail of the cement
industry, starting from the tiniest nitty-gritty of the manu-
16

facturing process, to imagining the impact that cement technology
could have on economic development. Money would come; he was
still young and his entire life lay ahead of him. Now was the time
to gain knowledge and prepare a rock-solid foundation on which
he could build a successful professional career.
Life was hard in Bihar. He had little money, poor accommodation,
and the food was alien. But he was not bothered by his material
conditions. His work ethic of total commitment, unfailing honesty
and strict discipline was already hard-wired inside him—a
value system which would remain pure and invincible till the last
day of his life, and would inspire countless people whose lives he
would touch.
And his work was noticed. Within a year, he was promoted to
foreman, and by 1945, he was technical assistant to the general
manager of the factory.
EAST PAKISTAN
In 1946, Bhupati joined Assam Bengal Cement Company and was
posted in its portland cement factory in Bengal. The plant was in
the middle of a jungle, but that was hardly an issue with Bhupati.
This was a real engineering job and he plunged into it with great
enthusiasm. He worked in various departments of the factory and
excelled in all of them. It did not take long before the company’s
management began to take notice of the young man, who was
clearly a star in the making.
Independence was round the corner. The British managers
were returning home. The government began to get worried about
who would run the factories in their absence. The management
of Assam Bengal Cement recommended that B.V. Raju should be
placed in charge of the Bengal plant. The managers had not only
noted his engineering and technical knowledge, but also his people
skills.
17

With Independence came Partition, and Bhupati was working in East
Pakistan. But his Muslim staff assured him that he had nothing to fear,
and they would not let a hair on his head be harmed.
Bhupati treated all the workers equally and generously without
any bias towards any of them. A thousand miles away from
his home, he treated the workers as his family, helping them out in
times of trouble or sickness, going far beyond the call of duty and
sometimes even spending his own money. The workers deeply respected
him, even though he was younger than most of them. This
achievement was particularly creditable since Bhupati was a Telugu-speaking
Hindu in a Bengali-speaking Muslim-majority area.
And this at a time when the Partition of India on religious basis
was looming on the horizon. As Sri Raju recalled later, “Out of the
workers, 98 per cent are Muslims, and only 2 per cent were Hindus.
I used all sorts of tactics to build harmony and make them work.
There were various mindsets but I dealt with them carefully.”
So the company’s bosses had no hesitation in suggesting his
name as the person who should take over when the white men left.
With Partition, communal violence erupted. Bhupati’s factory
had been consigned to Pakistan. He helped move scared Hin-
18

du workers to safety. As the riots escalated, he too decided that it
would be better for him to return to the Indian side of the border.
But his Muslim workers assured him that he had nothing to fear,
and they would not let a hair on his head be harmed. He must stay
on. He remained and the factory continued to run. But there was
no way for him to communicate with his family. Back in Kumudavalli,
his parents and siblings and his young wife worried about
his whereabouts; indeed, they did not even know whether he was
still alive.
Finally, in 1949, when things had more or less calmed down,
B.V. Raju handed over the factory to the Pakistan government and
came back home.
He had seen hard times and good times, gained a wealth of
experience, worked and interacted with a wide variety of people
from across the sub-continent, and earned his spurs. He was now
a fully formed man, with his own philosophy of life, both personal
and professional. He was ready to take charge of his destiny.
19

CHAPTER 2
The Karmayogi
SRI RAJU did not have to wait long for opportunities to come his
way after he returned home from East Pakistan. As he had anticipated,
the Indian cement industry had started growing, and with
the British gone, there was a dearth of competent engineer-managers.
Within weeks, he had a number of job offers in hand. After
some thought, he decided to take up the one from Andhra Cement
in its Vijayawada plant. Vijayawada was the nearest big city to Kumudavalli,
some hours away by train or road, and he would not be
too far from his parents.
The best testimonial of the work he did at Vijayawada came
just two years later, in 1951, when the Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) government
offered him a
Junius R Jayawardene
had been Finance
Minister and then
Agriculture Minister
when Sri Raju had been
Chief Engineer in the
Ceylon in the 1950s, He
was now President, and
when Sri Raju retired
from Cement Corporation
of India, he wanted him
back in Colombo.
20

An invitation to
meet the Queen
of England for
“Ceylon Raju”, as
he was known at
that time.
job as one of its Chief Engineers. Ceylon had gained independence
from the British Raj in 1948 and was short of trained indigenous
technocrats. Cement, obviously, would play a key role in building
the new nation. The work the Ceylon government had in mind
for him was extremely important for the nation’s future, and he
was the only non-European selected for the post. It is also quite
remarkable that this opportunity was given to a man who was only
31 years old. Sri Raju took the assignment and for the next five
years, helped the creation and growth of industry in Ceylon. He
was directly involved in constructing and commissioning two cement
factories, one paper and pulp mill, and a sugar and chemical
factory.
And of course, he would be known for years in Kumudavalli by
the nickname “Ceylon Raju”.
Later, it would change to “Cement Raju”.
DALMIAPURAM
Returning to India in the mid-1950s, Sri Raju joined Bagalkot
Cement as General Manager of the company’s main plant at
Bagalkot, Karnataka. In 1958, he rejoined Dalmia Cement, his first
21

Sri Raju spent 15 years in Dalmiapuram, not only growing it in terms
of capacity, but also in quality of product, efficiency, employee welfare
and every other parameter of management and societal responsibility.
employer, but this time as head of its Dalmiapuram complex near
Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu. This was where the company’s first
cement plant (and one of the first in India) had been set up in 1939,
with a capacity of 250 tonnes per day, and was its largest. In fact,
Sri Raju would have to manage not only the industrial facility but
also, in a way, the entire township that had grown up around it.
The industrial complex comprised the cement plant, the ceramics
and stoneware plants and the refractory. Sri Raju would
spend the next 15 years of his working life there, growing Dalmiapuram,
not only in terms of capacity, but also in quality of
product, efficiency, employee welfare and every other parameter
of management and societal responsibility.
His ability as an engineer had always been exceptional. Not
only did he know the cement production process inside out, he
was a true hands-on technical person. Nearly two decades after he
22

His ability as an engineer had always been exceptional. Not only did he
know the cement production process inside out, he was a true hands-on
technical person.
passed away, men who had worked with him recall incidents from
40 years before, such as, when, walking down the floor of a plant,
he would sense from the sound a machine was making that it was
not functioning properly, and would say, “I think there’s a problem
with the gearbox, maybe the lubrication.” The floor engineers
would then investigate and discover that yes, that was exactly
what the problem was.
He also thought nothing of rolling up his sleeves and getting
his hands dirty, doing work that managers would never “stoop” to
do themselves and leave to lowly-paid mechanics and workmen. In
the 1970s, as Chairman and Managing Director of Cement Corporation
of India, Sri Raju was visiting a plant where the stirrer in a
slurry basin was not working. He climbed into the basin to check
the problem himself. No public sector corporation chairman had
possibly ever done such a thing. The crowd around him, from top
23

managers to blue-collar staff, was amazed. But for Sri Raju, it was
business as usual. He had merely done what he believed was necessary
for him to do his job well. He wanted to know for himself what
the problem was, and no problem in his company was too small for
him to deny it his personal attention.
This characteristic, of never looking down on any form of
work, and a deep recognition of the dignity of labour, was one of
the reasons that, throughout his working life, Sri Raju was loved
by workers. The other reason was his empathy that extended to all.
This was not part of any management strategy; it was simply who
he was as a human being. If there was a happy occasion in a worker’s
family, like a wedding, he would make it a point to visit and
bless the couple. If there was a problem—an accident, an illness,
he would be there at the hospital at the end of a grueling workday
to give assurance and lend a helping hand if needed. If there was
a death, he saw it as his duty to comfort the grieving family and
provide whatever assistance was possible.
The people of Dalmiapuram loved Sri Raju. He was part of their
festivals, their joys, their celebrations.
24

An elephant, the most beloved animal of South India, brought in by the
staff to pay respect to the man who took care of them all.
MORE THAN A MANAGER
Mr V.S. Narang, today an eminence grise of the Indian cement industry,
worked closely with Sri Raju for 26 years, starting at Dalmia
Cement, fresh from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur,
accompanying him to Cement Corporation of India, and then
to Raasi Cement. Soon after he joined work at Dalmiapuram, he
was diagnosed with a kidney stone and had to be rushed to hospital
at Thanjavur, 50 kilometres away. “And B.V. Raju Garu came
there at night to see me,” he recalls. “I was a management trainee
and he was the general manager. Such a man—you could die for
him; you could give your life for him.”
Mr Narang is merely one of the scores of people who worked
with Sri Raju at the beginning of their careers and today occupy
very high positions in industry. All of them remember his spontaneous
acts of kindness with bowed heads. K. Narayana Rao, who
joined Raasi Cement as a young management accountant in 1982,
25

Sri Raju with Thiru K. Kamaraj, former Chief Minister of Tamil
Nadu and President of the Indian National Congress.
is today Director, Delhi International Airport Ltd, and one of the
top executives of the GMR Group. One evening, some months after
he joined Raasi, his wife, who was expecting their first child, suddenly
went into labour, and needed to be taken to hospital urgently.
New to the city of Hyderabad, the young man could think of no
one he could turn to for help—except the Chairman of his company!
“I went to B.V. Raju Garu’s home and told him my situation,”
he recalls. “He immediately said: ‘Take my car and driver.’ I was
amazed, but he wouldn’t listen, he said: ‘Just take my car and go.’
Next morning, at 11 am, my wife gave birth. Later I heard from
a colleague, the company secretary, that Raju Garu called him in
the morning and said, ‘I’ve given my car to Narayana Rao, can you
arrange a taxi for me to go to office?’ The company secretary told
me, ‘You’re just a management accountant, how dare you ask him
for his car?’ I said that I never asked for his car. That was the level
of his kindness and generosity.”
26

Mr Narayana Rao pauses for a moment as he reflects on the
37-year-old incident, and, amazingly, repeats, almost verbatim,
what Mr Narang had said: “I felt, this is the sort of person I’m
working for! I should be ready to give my life for him.”
In none of the plants or corporations that Sri Raju headed did
he face any labour unrest. In the companies he set up, the trade
unions were all internal; there were never any political affiliations,
because the workers trusted Sri Raju to take care of their
interests far more than they trusted political parties.
HANDLING POLITICIANS
In Bengal, as Partition neared and the threat of communal violence
loomed, his Muslim employees had rallied around and
pledged to protect their Hindu boss. In 1965-66, Tamil Nadu erupted
with anti-Hindi agitations led by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(DMK). Passions ran so high that there were several cases
Thiru M. Karunanidhi, the late DMK leader and several-times chief
minister of Tamil Nadu, visiting Dalmiapuram. He had shot to
political fame at Dalmiapuram, when demanding that the name of the
area and the nearby railway station be changed back to Kallakudi.
27

With Thiru C.N. Annadurai, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and leader
of the Dravidian political movement.
of self-immolation by protestors. Dalmiapuram was an obvious
target, since it was an industrial complex owned by a North Indian
(Marwari) family, even named after the family.
Indeed, M. Karunanidhi, the late DMK leader and several-times
chief minister of Tamil Nadu, had shot to political fame at this
very place. In 1953, the 29-year-old Karunanidhi had led a movement
demanding that the name of the area and the nearby railway
station be changed back to its original name, Kallakudi. The agitation
failed, but it laid the foundations of Karunanidhi’s long and
successful political career, and the young leader earned the sobriquet
“Kallakudi veerar (the warrior of Kallakudi)”. In 1967, when
DMK formed the government in Tamil Nadu, it changed the name
of the railway station to Kallakudi, with assent of the central government.
Dalmiapuram, however, remained Dalmiapuram, and
the surrounding areas continued to be called Kallakudi by people,
as it had always been.
Thus, it was feared that Dalmiapuram would be attacked since
Thiru Karunanaidhi was one of the most prominent leaders of the
28

anti-Hindi agitation; and the Tamil workers of the plant could also
join the movement. “But not a single stone was thrown,” says Mr
Narang. “Nothing happened. The railway station was burnt down,
but Dalmiapuram was like an ocean of calm while the entire state
was on fire. Not only did the workers stand united behind Raju
Garu, he had also managed the political environment incredibly
well.” It should be remembered that the anti-Hindi agitation was
the turning point in the history of Tamil Nadu and the Dravidian
movement. The Congress lost the next state elections and Dravidian
parties have been in power in the state ever since.
Yet, Sri Raju was the strictest boss the workers had ever known,
as far as discipline and work culture went. Every worker who was
late in reporting to duty got a red mark on the register when he
signed in for the day. This applied to everyone. When a senior manager
came in a mere seven minutes late and got to sign the register
without a red mark, this did not evade Sri Raju’s eagle eye. He
issued a stern memo. Many years later, when he was Chairman
of the company he had himself set up, Raasi Cement, he would
unfailingly sign the register and mark the time when he came in to
office. Each rule that applied to the lowliest worker applied equally
to the highest person in the company.
Every employee knew this, that the word “favouritism” did
not exist in Sri Raju’s dictionary. He would never ask anyone to do
anything that he would not gladly do himself. And every employee
reciprocated. A Swiss consultant had been called in when the
Dalmiapuram cement plant was facing a technical problem. After
spending a few days inspecting the plant and the machinery, the
engineer said: “Mr Raju, your factory is old, yet it is running to
more than its full potential. This is not the machinery at work, it’s
your people.” A former employee recalls that when Sri Raju quit
Dalmiapuram in 1973, the staff—from blue-collar workers to senior
officers—wept “as if their father was leaving them for ever”.
29

In 1963, Sri Raju was sent for a one-year Program for Management
Development at Harvard Business School. His time there exposed him
to the American university and public library systems, much of which
had been funded by the philanthropy of wealthy businessmen. He
vowed to do the same in India.
THE AMERICAN INSPIRATION
In 1963, Sri Raju was sent for a one-year Program for Management
Development at Harvard Business School. He sharpened his managerial
skills there with theoretical knowledge, but his sojourn
in the United States also exposed him to the American university
and public library systems, much of which had been funded by the
philanthropy of wealthy businessmen.
John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in American history, had
helped found, among several other institutions, the University of
Chicago, which he called “the best investment (he) ever made”.
Railroad baron Leland Stanford set up Stanford University; James
Buchanan Duke, who made his millions in tobacco and hydroelec-
30

tric power, founded Duke University. George Eastman, founder
of Eastman Kodak, was the largest donor for education of African-Americans
in the 20th century, and pseudonymously gave $20
million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which
transformed MIT from just another engineering college to one of
the world’s best. The most stunning example is steel tycoon Andrew
Carnegie, who retired from business in 1901 as the world’s
wealthiest man at that time, and spent the next 18 years of his life
giving away 90 per cent of his fortune, mostly to further education
and reading. He set up a pension fund for teachers, built 2,000 public
libraries, and funded countless educational institutes, including
co-founding the hugely reputed Carnegie Mellon University.
The prosperity of the United States of America owed much to
its excellent universities. Many years after Sri Raju went to Harvard,
Silicon Valley would literally take birth at Stanford and grow
around it as the hub of innovation. And the universities in turn
owed much to millionaires, some of whom had not had the means
to attend college (like Rockefeller and Carnegie) but recognized
the value of education.
Sri Raju with Seetha Devi, his quiet pillar of strength for 60 years.
31

Sri Raju speaking at a meeting as Chairman and Managing Director
of Cement Corporation of India.
The 43-year-old cement plant manager made a silent vow to
himself. That if he ever had the means, he would do something for
education. He knew how education had empowered him to break
the shackles imposed on him by history. And he would never forget
how that had been made possible because of his mother’s vision
and sacrifice.
PUBLIC SECTOR BOSS
By the early 1970s, Sri Raju was widely acknowledged as the best
manager in the Indian cement industry. In 1973, Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi was looking for someone to head the loss-making but
nationally important public sector enterprise Cement Corporation
of India (CCI). She zeroed in on Sri Raju. Perhaps she recalled presenting
him the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry (FICCI) Award for Best Industrial Relations and Highest
Productivity for 1972 at a grand function in Delhi. Sri Raju was
offered the post of Managing Director. He politely declined.
Most public sector corporations at that time had two different
32

people as Chairman and Managing Director. The Chairman was
usually a political appointee, while the Managing Director was
a professional. Sri Raju did not want a job, however prestigious,
where his professional decisions could face interference from a
boss with an agenda not fully aligned to the business success of
the company. He would not compromise his professional integrity.
He was confident that he could turn CCI around, but to do that, he
needed a free hand and the government’s full backing.
In a remarkable act of reconsideration, the government of India
came back to Sri Raju three months later and offered him the
joint post of Chairman and Managing Director (CMD). He accepted.
It would be the biggest challenge he had faced in his career till
then, but that was something he welcomed. He would also be in a
position to more directly serve his nation.
When Sri Raju moved to Delhi to take charge, he realized
that the most important task he had on hand was to bring about
a culture change. CCI was the typical stodgy public sector corpo-
Unlike many public sector chiefs, Sri Raju was fully hands-on as
Chairman and Managing Director of Cement Corporation of India.
33

ration, where staff motivation was low, work ethic was lackadaisical,
and industrial relations could do with much improvement.
Plants were running much below capacity. There were many good
managers and engineers, but in the absence of strong inspiring
leadership, their enthusiasm had flagged. Corruption was also a
problem, including in top management. No wonder CCI had gone
into losses, and was lagging behind private sector players like ACC
and Dalmia Cement.
TURNING AROUND CCI
Sri Raju set about his work on a war footing. He brought in his
trusted aide, Mr Narang. He started visiting the plants, and when
he visited the plants, he walked the shopfloors, he climbed the ladders,
he inspected the machines, he had long conversations with
the plant managers, foremen and workers. This by itself was quite
astonishing to CCI employees. CMDs had usually visited plants
only on special occasions or to attend ceremonies (cut a ribbon or
two, hoist a flag), and no one had ever spoken to workers, except for
some photo ops for company newsletters. And certainly CMDs did
not clamber up ladders and touch machines, let alone get into slurry
basins to check a problem first-hand. The news spread quickly,
and people started asking: Who was this man?
Among the people impressed were the trade unions. Says Mr
Narang: “Of course, they would fight him on specific issues. But
overall, they had immense respect for him. Because they knew
that he would always listen to them sincerely and sympathetically,
and if he was convinced that what they were asking for was justified,
he would agree or would fight for their cause, if it needed
approval from some higher-up authority.”
At the same time, and this was the hallmark of his persona
and his management philosophy (the two of which can never be
separated fully) throughout his long career, Sri Raju’s kindness
34

The trade unions had immense respect for Sri Raju. Because they knew
that he would always listen to them sincerely and sympathetically, and
if he was convinced that what they were asking for was justified, he
would agree or would fight for their cause, if it needed approval from
some higher-up authority.
and empathy were evenly balanced with his demand for absolute
commitment from his colleagues and staff to the job. Commitment,
hard work, discipline, honesty and integrity—there could be
no compromise on these. And failure on these counts was treated
with zero tolerance.
Mr Narang cites a telling example. “A Director—Projects at
CCI was corrupt, and he had been getting away with it because he
had some political connections. This was of course absolutely unacceptable
to Raju Garu. He made sure that the man was sacked.
Now, the sacking finally happened the day before this man was to
retire. One day more, and he would have gone anyway, in the natural
course of things. But because he was dismissed, he lost all his
retirement benefits. Some people felt sorry for him. After all, he
was going in any case, what did one more day matter? But Raju Garu’s
principles on such issues were ironclad. And this sent a very
35

Sri Raju with his family in the 1990s.
powerful message down the line, across the organization. That no
matter who you are, or however powerful, dishonesty would no
longer be tolerated in CCI.”
It is a truth about human beings that most of us fail to—or decide
not to—acknowledge. That most people are honest by nature
and would prefer to live honest lives in an honest environment.
And when the person in charge is a shining beacon of that virtue,
and rewards and punishes on the basis of that, most people are
not only happy, but feel motivated to give their best, without fear.
Sri Raju had managed to change the public sector culture. The old
lethargy was gone. Employees were now proud to work for CCI.
M. Purnachander, today Director—Procurement at Heidelberg
Cement India, joined Raasi Cement as an engineer in 1987.
“Raju Garu’s philosophy was simple. If you were given a task, and
gave your 100 per cent, honestly, and didn’t succeed, you could be
36

trained, he would help you improve,” he says. “But if you hadn’t
given the task everything that you had, with honesty and commitment,
there was no escape. And he had no time for excuses. In his
dictionary, there was no such word as ‘but’. If you did it, you did it.
If you didn’t, you didn’t. No excuses, please.”
As if turning around CCI was not enough workload, Sri Raju,
during this period, was also an advisor to the governments of Indonesia,
Malaysia and Bhutan for industrial development. He was
president of the Cement Research Institute for three years, and
also a three-term Chairman of the Development Council for Cement
in the Industries Ministry of the Government of India. He
was also technical advisor to the Tamil Nadu government for setting
up cement and ceramic factories.
In his five years as CMD, CCI was transformed as a company.
Sales revenue rose nearly fourfold, from Rs 3.55 crore when he had
joined, to Rs 12.50 crore. Not only did the efficiency of its existing
plants improve dramatically, CCI set up four new plants across India.
This was a record achievement. All these plants boasted the
latest technology, an area where CCI had fallen behind the more
dynamic private sector players.
Mr Janaradhana Reddy, who later worked as a Chief Engineer
at Raasi Cement, tells the story of one such plant that Sri Raju set
up, at Yerraguntla in the Rayalaseema region in Andhra Pradesh.
“The Rayalaseema region was underdeveloped and riven with factionalism.
No industry ever ventured there, in spite of its natural
resources,” he says. “Raja Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara
empire had called it Ratnalaseema—the land of jewels, but we
never saw any of it. In fact, I remember reading in my Class VIII
school textbook that there is a cement plant in the area. But there
was no such thing! A foundation stone had been laid many years
ago, and that was it. Then Raju Garu came in 1976 and laid the
foundation stone again, and said: We will build this plant.”
37

Sri Raju receiving the Padma Shri from Vice-President B.D. Jatti.
Sri Raju knew what a difference this cement plant could make
to the lives of the people in the area. He decided to hire only locals
for the junior-level jobs. Mr Janaradhana Reddy, a young unemployed
mechanical engineer, was among the many young people
who applied and were called to Delhi for an interview. He was
hired.
“We never expected that the project would be completed,” he
recalled. “But Raju Garu would come down frequently and monitor
the progress. There was severe groupism among the locals.
There was negativity. Managers were beaten up. But Raju Garu
made the people see sense. And the plant was completed. The area
became peaceful. The region is rich in limestone. Once they saw
Raju Garu succeeding, others came in. So today there are several
cement plants there. The region produces millions of tonnes of
cement today. He didn’t just set up a factory against all odds, he
changed the fortunes of thousands and thousands of people for
generations.” As for Mr Janaradhana Reddy himself, in his de-
38

cades-long career, he went on to set up many cement plants, in India
and abroad.
With Sri Raju at the helm for five years, CCI again became a
tough and modern company, giving its competitors a run for their
money. In 1977, he was honoured with the Padma Shri award, in
recognition of his efforts. In 1978, having reached the retirement
age of 58 years, he left CCI. The government offered him an extension
of three years, but he refused. He had other things in mind.
Sadly, as Mr Narang, who stayed on in CCI for some time, relates,
after Sri Raju’s departure, the tempo began slackening, and
a gradual downslide began. CCI never recovered its glory days of
the late 1970s.
According to the company’s website, accessed on 30 January
2020, of its 11 plants, only three are operational today. Unfortunately,
among the plants that have been shut down is the one at
Yerraguntla. By 1994-95, due to massive losses accumulated over
many years, its net worth had turned negative, and was referred
as a sick company to the Bureau of Industrial Finance and Reconstruction.
The rehabilitation scheme, sanctioned in 2006, involved
closure and sale of assets of unviable plants, waiver of interest
on government dues, and several other concessions from the government,
financial institutions, banks and creditors. In November
2018, CCI’s net worth finally turned positive and it is today again
showing annual profits.
A NEW BEGINNING
Obviously, a person like Sri Raju, a karmayogi in every sense of
that sacred sanatana dharma term, when he left CCI, was not
thinking of spending the rest of his life in blissful retirement. In
any case, those who loved and admired him were not going to allow
him that. They wanted much more from him because they knew
how much more he was capable of.
39

Interestingly enough, Sri Lanka wanted him to return to Colombo.
Junius R Jayawardene, who had been Finance Minister
and then Agriculture Minister when Sri Raju had been Chief Engineer
in the island nation in the 1950s, was now President. He and
Sri Raju had remained in touch, and now President Jayawardene
wanted him back on a United Nations assignment he had specifically
in mind for Sri Raju.
But destiny had something else in store for him.
At the age of 58, when most people hang up their boots, Sri
Raju was all set to enter the most exciting phase of his life, as an
entrepreneur, educationist and philanthropist that would impact
hundreds of thousands of lives for generations to come.
40

CHAPTER 3
The Entrepreneur
WHEN HE retired from CCI, Sri Raju was definitely not contemplating
spending his remaining years in vanaprastham, the third—
restful—stage of life recommended in the Hindu scriptures. The
Sri Lanka-United Nations offer was there, but Kumudavalli and
Andhra were also calling.
Indeed, though he had maintained very strong ties with his
family and friends in his village and his state, he had not been a
resident of Andhra since he left in his teens to pursue his engineering
studies in Banaras, except for a short stint in Vijayawada
for Andhra Cements.
But not much had changed over the decades. Kumudavalli and
the surrounding region had remained economically backward.
Sri Raju
and Seetha
Devi leaving
Dalmiapuram
to take charge
of Cement
Corporation of
India.
41

The state of Andhra too lagged behind many states of India on
human development indices. Literacy was low, much of the population
was still dependent on subsistence agriculture, and there
were not too many industries, other than some public sector units.
Especially lacking was indigenous entrepreneurship on a large
scale.
It was while he was in the process of working out his future
plans that he was approached by men from his own and other nearby
villages. Kumudavalli’s most illustrious son was India’s greatest
living expert on cement, so why couldn’t he set up a cement
plant? There would be direct economic benefits to the people and
the region, plus the ensuing multiplier effects.
A PEOPLE’S COMPANY
But, said Sri Raju, setting up a cement plant of a reasonable size
needed a large amount of capital. One could go to banks and financial
institutions for loans, but that could happen only after a
substantial amount of seed capital had been raised, and he certainly
did not have even a fraction of the sort of money needed.
Not to worry, said local landlords like Mr P.V.L. Thimma Raju, Mr
Mantena Surpa Raju, Mr B.H. Ramakrishnam Raju, Mr A.S. Raju,
Mr N.S. Raju, and many others. We have full faith in you. We are
willing to sell some of our agricultural lands and give you that
money as the seed capital for your venture. The state had also seen
sweeping land reforms, which made it necessary for the Raju community
to sell some of their land holdings. The Rajus saw no better
man to entrust the sales proceeds of their land with than Bhupatiraju
Vissam Raju.
People from more than 50 villages in the area rallied around,
some of them giving as little as Rs 5,000, for the project. The total
promoters’ contribution finally came to Rs 1.38 crore. Against this,
the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation provid-
42

Sri Raju at the first office of Raasi Cement. The office was marked by
his usual emphasis on austerity and no unnecessary extravagance.
ed a further Rs 1.40 crore. The seed capital had been raised.
Thus was born Raasi Cement, a people’s company in more
senses than one. “Cement Raju” had found his next mission. He
had been a star in the private sector, had excelled in the public
sector, and now, when most men hung up their boots, would begin
his journey as an entrepreneur.
Sri Raju had been a lifelong devotee of Lord Vishnu. All his
grandsons are named after the various appellations of the god.
Thus, it was natural that when he set up his own company, he would
follow the same principle. The name “Raasi” is an amalgamation
of “Rama”, Lord Vishnu’s avatar, “Anjaneya” (another name of
Lord Hanuman) and “Sita”. Sita (rather, Seetha), of course, was
also Sri Raju’s wife’s name. This was a joyous coincidence, for she
was his great source of strength through his life.
Right from Day One, Sri Raju drove Raasi Cement at a blistering
pace. Here is a quick timeline:
The company was incorporated in 1978.
43

Sri Raju at a Raasi Cement plant. For the financial year ending 1984,
The Economic Times, based on its study of the top 251 private sector
companies in terms of assets, ranked Raasi Cement as “the most
profitable large organized sector company in the country”.
Sri Raju’s fame and tales of his accomplishments had preceded
him when he approached the Andhra Pradesh government for land
for Raasi’s first factory. The procedure for acquiring 268.5 acres in
Wadapalli village in Nalgonda district was completed in an astonishing
35 days against the usual period of eight months to a year.
It was the same with financial institutions. The Industrial Development
Bank of India (IDBI) cleared a loan of Rs 18 crore—a
very large sum at that time—in 45 days, an all-time record.
The construction of the three-lakh-tonne Wadapalli plant was
completed an amazing 18 months ahead of schedule, and at a cost
of Rs 23.59 crore as against the budgeted cost of Rs 30 crore.
Commercial production began on 15 April 1982, and the plant
almost immediately started working at 125-130 per cent capacity
utilization per day.
One-and-a-half months later, when Raasi Cement closed its
44

financial year, on 30 June 1982, it had earned a profit of Rs 3.70
crore—a stunning achievement.
For the financial year ending 1984, India’s largest-selling business
newspaper, The Economic Times, based on its study of the top
251 private sector companies in terms of assets, ranked Raasi Cement
as “the most profitable large organized sector company in
the country”. Raasi had achieved this remarkable feat within twoand-a-half
years of beginning commercial operations, while being
part of one of the most heavily-regulated industries—cement prices
and how much companies could sell in the open market were
tightly controlled by the government.
In fact, by 1985, in just seven years’ time, Raasi Cement had
become the Raasi group of companies with a total capital investment
of almost Rs 250 crore. It comprised Sri Vishnu Cement, Raasi
Refractories, Raasi Ceramics and Telengana Paper Mills, a sick
company which the Raasi group took over in May 1985.
Let us now go behind the timeline and see how this was done.
THE HANDS-ON CHAIRMAN
“Nalgonda, where Raju Garu decided to set up his first plant, was
rich in limestone, and thus ideal for the cement industry,” recalls
Mr V.S. Narang. “But no one had ventured there before. It was a
bit of a godforsaken area. There was no infrastructure—no good
roads, no rail connectivity to transport material and product. So
others had been afraid to take the risk. But Raju Garu did not hesitate.
He said, once we start building the plant, the roads and the
rail tracks will come.” And they did come. The infrastructure was
built when the need arose.
Mr Narang recalls with a wry smile that Sri Raju would insist
on surveying the entire area first-hand, whenever a new plant site
had been identified or a new mining lease was being negotiated.
This, even after professionals had done the due diligence. “Wheth-
45

Sri Raju in front of the White House during his visit to the United
States in 1984.
46

er it was 200 acres, 300 acres, he would travel through the entire
site,” he says. “Sometimes, we would be out in the absolute wild.
There would be nullahs we would need to cross. But he would just
roll up his trousers and wade through the water, and I would have
to do the same.”
“When we completed the first plant in that time and at that
cost, it was a world record,” says Mr Narang. “And almost from
Day One, we were producing 1,200 tonnes per day, way above capacity.
Even the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank
body that focuses on the private sector, sent a team to figure out
how we had done it. Maybe they didn’t believe us and thought we
were bluffing. The team spent four-five days at the facilities, looking
at everything, talking to all of us. When they went back, they
reported that what they saw compared favourably with any cement
factory in the developed world. And as soon as production had stabilized,
Raju Garu was planning a second unit, which would produce
3,000 tonnes a day.” For constructing Unit 2, Sri Raju brought
in Mr Janaradhana Reddy, who he had hired as a fresh engineer
while setting up CCI’s Yerraguntla plant.
This is a recurring theme in Sri Raju’s career. He would hire
bright and raw young men, youngsters he had seen some spark
in, who needed only right guidance to achieve their potential. He
would invest his time and energy in them, train them, and watch
them and judge their competence and sincerity. Many of the ones
he saw as special and trustworthy people would also leave for what
they saw as better career opportunities, or more money. For example,
assignments in the United Arab Emirates. Sri Raju would let
them go, wishing them all the very best. And then, maybe five, or
even 10 years later, when he felt that he needed this man for the job,
someone he could trust with a critical project, he would call them.
And almost inevitably, they happily came back to take on challenging
and arduous tasks. This was the loyalty Sri Raju commanded.
47

To come back to our story, Sri Raju’s next step was Sri Vishnu
Cement, Raasi’s wholly owned subsidiary, whose first plant, with
a capacity of 2,000 tonnes per day, was completed in June 1986, seven
months ahead of schedule, and well under budgeted cost. This
project was headed by Mr Narang.
But what was the magic formula that had made Raasi Cement
India’s most profitable private sector company within two-and-ahalf
years of beginning commercial operations?
THE MOST PROFITABLE FIRM
In fact, the results of The Economic Times’ research had so amazed
Dilip Thakore, editor of Business World, at that time India’s leading
business magazine, that he flew down personally to Hyderabad
to write a cover story on Raasi Cement, a “backwoods company” as
he called it that he had barely heard of.
When he came away after long interactions with Sri Raju and
his top managers, he concluded: “If Raasi Cement has emerged
from the depths of obscurity to become India’s most profitable
company within two years of commencing commercial production,
the critical factors are not the company’s project implementation,
capacity utilization and cost control systems—important
as these are—but the effectiveness of the individual who has put
together the management package that has made it all possible:
B.V. Raju.”
First, a look at Raasi’s profitability compared with other companies
in the same industry. According to the July 1985 cover story
in Business World, the ratio of Raasi Cement’s gross profit/ net
sales in the previous financial year was 1:2.13. That is, for every Rs
213 of actual sales revenue (gross sales minus returns, allowances
and discounts), Raasi was making a gross profit (revenues minus
cost of goods sold) of Rs 100. The corresponding ratio for India’s
largest private sector cement company ACC was 1:8.13 (that is, to
48

Business World
wrote: “If Raasi
Cement has emerged
from the depths of
obscurity to become
India’s most profitable
company within two
years of commencing
commercial
production, it is due to
the effectiveness of the
individual who...has
made it all possible:
B.V. Raju.”
make a gross profit of Rs 100, ACC had to earn actual sales revenues
of Rs 813). For Dalmia Cement, where Sri Raju had worked
for so many years, it was was 1:7.43. In the cement industry, Raasi’s
closest competitor on this parameter was Andhra Cement, with 1:
4.91, which again was much less than half of Raasi’s figure.
Obviously, Sri Raju’s success formula was a mix of ingredients,
and one of the key ones was an obsession with costs. Or rather,
the right costs.
In his interview to Business World, he explained: “While we
spend liberally on technology, our plant and employees, we have
cut non-productive expenditure—rent, electricity, telephones and
travel to the minimum. The management’s goal is rising production
and decreasing expenditure.”
Thakore was surprised to discover that India’s most profitable
49

Sri Raju: “The majority of our shareholders are agriculturists who
have to toil for 12-14 hours per day to earn modest sums... So we have to
act as trustees of their money and spend it with the greatest care.”
“large organized sector company” was headquartered in three
modest bungalows in a residential Hyderabad suburb, with rents
as low as Rs 0.50 per square foot, with no carpets and no air conditioners.
“The furniture is standard government issue and the
cheapest possible,” he wrote.
Till the company completed a full profitable financial year in
1983, all executives travelled by train and not air. Staying in fivestar
hotels was unheard of. This focus on cutting every unproductive
cost was an article of faith in the company. Sri Raju refused
to buy a company car for himself till the company paid its first
dividends to its shareholders.
When it came to cost-cutting, no detail was too small for Sri
Raju’s scrutiny. Says Mr Purnachander: “Many years later, when
we were choosing tables for classrooms for the girls’ polytechnic
at the Bhimavaran campus, Raju Garu would measure the depth
of the ply on the table surface, and would find that it was less than
what the vendor had claimed, and was overcharging.”
50

This fixation with unnecessary or avoidable costs reflected an
austerity at the core of Sri Raju’s character. When he had taken
over as Chairman and Managing Director of CCI, he was entitled
to a grand Raj-era bungalow in Lutyens Delhi with spread-out
lawns. He saw no use for this extravagance and chose a modest
three-bedroom house. “In spite of everyone urging him to, Raju
Garu would not buy a car,” recalls Mr Purnachander. “He saw that
as spending shareholders’ money on his luxury. Finally he bought
it when he thought that it was all right, the company was doing
well enough. I still remember the number of his car: 4977.” Sri
Raju saw himself as a trustee of public funds, especially the small
shareholders who had given him the money that they had got from
selling their ancestral land to put up the seed capital for Raasi Cement.
He told Business World: “The majority of our shareholders are
agriculturists who have to toil for 12-14 hours per day to earn modest
sums. Even in these inflationary times, Rs 10 is a lot of money
in the countryside. So we have to act as trustees of their money
and spend it with the greatest possible care or we are likely to lose
their confidence. After all, the management’s stake in the company
is very small.” The significance of this simple principle cannot
be overstated.
AN AUSTERE TRUSTEESHIP
It directly echoes Mahatma Gandhi’s trusteeship doctrine—that
all people having money or property hold it in trust for society. Society
is to be regarded as a donor to the individual and accordingly
the latter is required to share part of his acquired wealth with the
society for mutual benefit. According to this doctrine, business organizations
have to be viewed as socio-economic institutions to be
run and owned by “Trust Corporation” with considerably diluted
shareholdings.
51

In the November 26, 1932 issue of Young India, Gandhiji wrote:
“My idea of society is that while we are born equal, meaning
thereby that we all have a right to equal opportunity, all have not
the same capacity. It is in the nature of things impossible. For
instance, all cannot have same height, colour or degree of intelligence.
Therefore, in nature of things, some will have ability to
earn more and others less. Normally, people with talents will have
more. Such people should be viewed to exist as trustees and in no
other terms”.
Explaining his ideas in more detail, Gandhiji added: “Suppose
I have earned a fair amount of wealth either by way of legacy or by
means of trade and industry. I must know that all that belongs to
me is the right to an honourable livelihood no better than what is
enjoyed by millions of others, the rest of my wealth belongs to the
community and be used for the welfare of the community.” Sri Raju’s
entire life is a testimony of that simple and selfless philosophy.
Says Mr Narayana Rao: “When Raju Garu and I would travel,
we would stay in the same hotel, adjacent rooms, have our meals
together. In Bombay, he could have easily stayed in some five-star
hotel, but he would stay with me, in Sea Green Hotel on Marine
Drive. And when Sea Green was full, both of us would stay at the
five-star Hotel President. He didn’t see any value in luxury, but if
he had no choice but to spend money on it, he would not make any
difference between himself and an employee like me.”
But Sri Raju’s costs approach was often much smarter than
many—including his competitors—ever realized. “A far-sighted
strategy he used when buying equipment was that he always
bought with an eye on the future—for higher capacity than was
needed right now,” says Mr Purnachander. “So you paid only 10
per cent extra for that higher capacity, and when you needed that
much capacity three or four years down the line, the equipment
was already there, bought at a much lower investment.”
52

Every Raasi Cement plant was completed ahead of schedule and under
budget.
Raasi also invested heavily in the latest technology, which appeared
to cost more than what its competitors were buying, but
which turned out cheaper in the long term, in terms of energy savings—cement
production is highly energy-intensive—and maintenance
expenses.
But his frowning down on all forms of indulgence did sometimes
make life tough for people close to him. A former employee
relates an incident on condition of anonymity, for obvious reasons.
“Raju Garu used to live on the ground floor, and his daughters on
the first and second floors. Once his daughters wanted to buy new
air conditioners, because their current ones were really old, but
they were scared that if he found out, he would be angry. They
turned to me for help. It had to be a secret project. So, over a week
or so, I had their old air conditioners taken away in boxes, supposedly
for repairs, bought new ones, brought them to the house in the
same boxes so that he would not suspect that new equipment had
been purchased, and had them installed!”
53

Raasi invested
heavily in the
latest technology,
which appeared
to cost more
than what its
competitors were
buying, but which
turned out cheaper
in the long term.
BRIGHT YOUNG MEN
Another hallmark of Sri Raju’s highly effective management
strategy, as briefly mentioned earlier, was to identify bright honest
young men and thrust great responsibility upon them. He himself
had taken on big assignments at a young age, and he knew the
ability and passion of youth to rise to the occasion. Of course, to
spot the right young people—whether they possessed the requisite
qualities—required a keen judgement of character and then bestowing
upon them a level of trust which would create a virtuous
cycle. We have already spoken about Mr Narang and Mr Janaradhana
Reddy. Here is the story of Mr Narayana Rao, key member of
the young cadre Sri Raju built to run the Raasi empire.
Mr Narayana Rao joined Raasi Cement in 1982, when the company
had just commenced production. He had been a young chartered
accountant working in Hyderabad in Novopan India, and
had helped Raasi’s Financial Controller, whom he knew, to prepare
the application for a bank loan for the company’s proposed
54

refractory project. In the course of this work, he met Sri Raju, who
asked him to come with him to Delhi for meetings with the financial
institution Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI),
including with the chairman Mr D.N. Davar. Mr Davar was in any
case inclined to support a technocrat of the stature of Sri Raju,
and he was impressed with the project report done by Mr Rao. Mr
Rao then sat with the IFCI team, answered all queries, and helped
it prepare its appraisal report of the project. The loan was sanctioned
within a couple of months.
A few days later, Mr Rao received a call from Mr Srinivasan,
Raasi Cement’s Financial Controller. Raasi was looking for a management
accountant, and Sri Raju had specifically asked whether
“the young man who prepared the loan application and got it
through” would be interested; if he was, then there was no need
for any interview or selection process. Mr Rao gladly accepted the
offer. Soon, even though he was in junior management, he found
himself interacting directly with Sri Raju.
“Raju Garu’s management principles were simple,” says Mr
Rao. “If someone was hard-working and sincere, the sky was the
limit for that person. He used to send me to the financial institutions—IDBI,
IFCI etc. Within two months, banks were also added
to my portfolio. In 1984, I was promoted to Finance Manager. Raasi
was then expanding capacity, another three-lakh-tonne plant was
being set up. Whenever Raju Garu used to go to the financial institutions
(FI), he would take me with him. By this time, I had also
picked up some technical details, because I had done my cost accountancy,
so I understood some of the engineering issues also.”
In 1984, Raasi was looking for an extension of its licence to expand.
Another industrial group had a one-million-tonne licence
for cement production in Nalgonda, but it was not interested. Raasi
bought the licence, and Sri Vishnu Cement was set up. “Raju
Garu wanted me to handle all the licence transfer work, so I did
55

that,” recalls Mr Rao. “Then he said, since you’ve done this, why
don’t you handle this project? So I did the whole project report—
two stages, first 0.6 million tonnes, and later, the rest.”
“On Day One, they sent me as Finance Manager and Company
Secretary of Sri Vishnu Cement in Nalgonda. Though I was the
finance man, I did everything, from A to Z, from land acquisition
to mining lease. The project was completed much before time and
much below budgeted cost in 1986. During this time, I was also
helping the parent company, which now had a new Finance Controller,
but he was from the public sector, so not so dynamic. So
I did all the FI work and handled the working capital issues with
banks.”
Meanwhile, Sri Raju wanted a ceramics project. Mr Rao was
assigned to do the project report, and deal with the FIs and banks.
The sick company Telengana Paper Mills had been purchased, and
when Mr Narang, the leader of Sri Raju’s young cadre, was sent
to turn it around (which he did within two years), Mr Rao was appointed
Chief Executive Officer (CEO). “So I was working for Raasi
Cement, Shree Vishnu, the refractory, and ceramics, plus I was
CEO of the paper company,” laughs Mr Rao.
Obviously, it was a massive workload, but Mr Rao did not mind.
“I enjoyed working with Raju Garu very much. He never treated
me like an employee, but like a family member. The warmth and
affection he extended to me was almost as if I was his son. People
used to say, working in Raasi Cement is very tough, because Raju
Garu is very demanding, has very high expectations. I used to say,
that’s good. Someone has high expectations, that’s an opportunity
for us. I would see that as a positive. But for those high expectations,
I would have never risen to this level today.”
“For him, what was important was honesty, sincerity, hard
work. If he was convinced of that, he would trust you totally. Even
when I was not so senior, in negotiations, after the general man-
56

Sri Raju at Raasi Cement, with the late Andhra Pradesh Chief
Minister Sri N.T. Rama Rao.
agers etc had been involved, he would say, Narayana Rao, you negotiate
with the party. If you are satisfied, you say so, and I’ll sign
blindly. So the final round of negotiations used to be done by me,
and once I recommended a price, he would sign. That immense
confidence he had in me, signing anything that I had approved,
that confidence was an added responsibility. It was simply this: He
believes in me, so I can’t let him down. I must live up to the faith
he has imposed in me. That was extremely precious for me. Money
can come and go, but once your reputation is spoiled, it’s gone for
ever.”
And whenever there was a problem, Sri Raju would be there. In
the last chapter, we have already spoken about how, when Mr Rao’s
wife went into labour late one evening with their first child, Sri
Raju, without a moment’s hesitation, lent him his personal car and
driver, and went to work the next day in a taxi. But beloved employees
did not always need to have a problem; Sri Raju was thinking
ahead for them, as an elder would do for a family member.
57

Sri Raju handing over a cheque for the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund
to former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Sri Nara Chandrababu
Naidu.
Mr Rao recalls how he came to own his first home. “One day,
Raju Garu asked me, ‘You’re working day and night, what about
your family, what about a house for yourself ?’ I said, ‘I’m all right
in my rented accommodation.’ He said, ‘No no, this is not right.
One of our steel suppliers is building some apartments, why don’t
you buy one?’ The cost of the apartment was Rs 2 lakh, and I didn’t
have the money. So the company gave Rs 50,000, and for the rest, I
took a loan from LIC Housing Finance, and I purchased the apartment.
Later, I sold that apartment, because it was too small for my
family. But Raju Garu heard about that and said: ‘No, you must
have a house of your own.’ My father-in-law had 300 yards of land
in Secunderabad, so Raju Garu said, ‘Why don’t you construct a
house? I have to take care of your welfare. I can’t see you working
all the time, with no house of your own.’ The cost was Rs 5 lakh.
By that time, I had cleared the earlier loan of Rs 50,000, so now the
company gave me Rs 1 lakh, and for the rest I took a loan.”
In 1994, Mr Rao, then vice-president and company secretary,
58

left the Raasi group to join Coromandel Fertilizers. “Raju Garu
was very reluctant to let me go, but finally he accepted it, and said:
‘Go, but our personal relationship must never be affected, you will
always be my man,’,” says Mr Rao. “I said: ‘No no, sir, whenever
you want anything from me, just call me.’ Coromandel Fertilizers
was a multinational company, so at 5 o’ clock, I was free; also the
company had a five-day week. So, for one year after I left Raasi, I
would sometimes go in the evening, or on Saturday and Sunday
and sit with him and help.”
These young men whom Sri Raju mentored, and who helped
carry his mission forward, freely acknowledge him as their guru
and give him credit for the success they have achieved in their
lives, even decades after their professional association with Sri
Raju ended. Indeed, they admit in one voice that their work philosophy
was shaped for life by that extraordinary man, and he remains
a guiding light for them.
Mr Rao is today Director of Delhi International Airport Ltd,
and one of the seniormost executives of the giant GMR group.
“Whatever I am today in life, it is due to what I learnt from him,”
he says candidly. “I have applied the principles that I learnt from
him throughout my career, for nearly 40 years.”
Says Mr Narang: “Ours was like a father-son relationship. He
was and will always stay my role model. I am now 76 years old, but
I still work ten to 12 hours a day. It’s because of him. He taught me
the value of work.”
Mr Purnachander was spotted by Sri Raju soon after he had
joined the group as a fresh engineer in 1987. He had spent the first
six months at headquarters, going through the daily production
numbers of the various plants of the six companies in the group,
and doing stoppage analysis and efficiency calculations. “My first
break, when I came to Raju Garu’s attention, was when Raasi Cement
was buying Wartsila diesel generator sets for its Nalgonda
59

plant,” he recalls. “The cost was Rs 1.86 crore, with a capacity of
4.3 MW at normal temperature and pressure. It had all been approved,
when I noticed that the manufacturers had taken normal
temperature as 20 degrees Celsius. But at Nalgonda, normal temperature
was above 40 degrees. For the Wartsila equipment, 20
degrees was considered normal, because the machines had been
manufactured in Finland. At 45 degrees, the generators could produce
only 3.85 MW. We were about to make a big mistake.” With the
new specifications, costs came down to Rs 1.56 crore.
“After that, I became his pet,” Mr Purnachander recalls. “He
used to call me for all sorts of things. For instance, Raasi Cement
was ordering three-inch pipes for carrying slurry downwards.
He asked me about it. I told him that we had three-inch pipes for
carrying slurry upwards. But when slurry comes down, it is also
helped by gravitational pull. So we can do with narrower pipes,
and save some costs. And we did.”
All his former employees speak of Sri Raju’s phenomenal
memory. He also got to know his trusted young men intimately.
Thus, when he started on his educational initiatives in the 1990s,
he involved Mr Purnachander, because he remembered that his
father had been a teacher, and Mr Purnachander used to take his
father’s tuition classes when the gentleman could not be present.
So, on weekdays, Mr Purnachander would work at Raasi, and Saturdays
and Sundays would be spent with Sri Raju at Narsapur and
Bhimavaran, building the educational campuses.
“In 1994, when I was made Executive Engineer, he told me:
‘One day, you’ll become a Director of this company’,” says Mr Purnachander.
“That dream of mine as fulfilled in 2016, though the
company had changed several hands by then.” The Raasi group
company which he had been working in when Sri Raju retired is
now Heidelberg Cement, where he is Director—Procurement.
The wintry day on which the author of this book visited Mr
60

The core of Sri Raju’s management philosophy was that organisations
are not built by machines. They are built by humans.
Purnachander at his office in Gurugram, was the foggiest day of
2019 in the National Capital Region. Visibility was almost zero,
and even at 11 AM, attendance was sparse at the office of this multinational
company. Most of the employees had not yet managed
to reach, or had taken leave. But Mr Purnachander was there. After
reminiscing about Sri Raju for more than an hour, he opened
the blinds of his window and looked out. It was still quite foggy
outside. “In my life, I have tried to follow the principles that distinguished
him from others,” he said. “If I hadn’t learnt from him,
I wouldn’t have come to office today at 9 AM. I have enough leave
left; I could have just taken the day off.”
“There is not a single day when I don’t remember him,” he
says. “My parents gave me biological birth. But my professional
birth was given by B.V. Raju Garu.”
If Sri Raju drove himself to his limits, he expected the same
61

The Sri Vishnu Cement team. If Sri Raju drove himself to his limits,
he expected the same level of devotion and work ethic from all his
colleagues and employees.
level of devotion and work ethic from all his colleagues and employees.
“He used to say: ‘Organisation is temple, duty is god, work
is worship’,” says Mr Rao. “That was the principle he lived by.”
Of course, he was a very hard task master. “The saying was:
If you’re able to satisfy B.V. Raju, you’ll never have any problem
managing any boss in your life,” says Mr Rao, with a laugh.
Mr Purnachander remembers an incident from June 1992.
“I was with him, going through the production reports from the
night before from various plants when he saw that one plant had
produced far below capacity. He called up the plant manager and
asked him what the reason was. The plant manager said it was because
of heavy rains. Dr Raju asked: ‘And what is the season right
now?’ It was a very simple question, but what he was implying was
absolutely clear. It was the height of monsoon and the plant manager
should obviously have taken precautions to see that production
was not affected due to rains. That evening, on my way home,
I bought a raincoat.”
62

DEGREES AREN’T EVERYTHING
The above examples were about people who had the requisite academic
qualifications to begin with. But Sri Raju’s vision was not
limited by college degrees. Mr Sagi Narayana Raju hails from Kumudavalli.
His father was a close friend of Sri Raju, but he passed
away on 26 February, 1962, a few weeks before Mr Narayana Raju
was to sit for his final school board examinations. Sri Raju, who
was then based at Dalmiapuram, came to visit the bereaved family
and asked the 17-year-old to meet him once he had cleared his
exams. When the teenager came to Dalmiapuram, Sri Raju asked
him what he wanted to do—pursue higher studies or work. Mr
Narayana Raju said that he wanted to work, since his family had
no earning member.
Within a few days, Sri Raju had got the teenager a job as a
trainee at Dalmia Magnesite Corporation in Salem. But his commitment
to his friend’s son did not end there, and neither did his
firm belief that the young men he helped should prove themselves
worthy of his generosity. “Every two or three months, I would visit
him at Dalmiapuram,” remembers Mr Narayana Raju. “We would
have breakfast or lunch and then he would ask me technical questions
about what I had learned. He would also give me some questions
and say that next time you come, you must bring me the written
answers to these. He was training me in technical matters in
addition to what I was learning on the operations side at Salem.”
Once he asked the young man whether he had visited the mines.
When Mr Narayana Raju said no, he had not, Sri Raju told him to
go see how the material was extracted from the mines. “You are
working as a burner, and you must know what is the raw material
you are burning,” was his simple explanation. The next assignment
was to work in the laboratories, to see how the material was
studied there, and why some of it was rejected. In this manner, a
young man who had no engineering degree was being transformed
63

into a technical expert. In 1970, when the Dalmias were setting up
a new cement plant, Sri Raju sent him to work there, so that he
could learn how a cement plant was erected. Mr Narayana Raju
would do his day job, and then work an evening-to-night shift at the
cement plant, learning.
And Sri Raju would not be satisfied with one-line replies to his
probing technical questions. Once when Mr Narayana Raju visited
Dalmiapuram, the plant had stopped. After having lunch with him,
Sri Raju took the young man to the factory and asked him why the
plant was not working. “I gave him a one-line answer which he dismissed,”
Mr Narayana Raju recalls with a chuckle. “His questions
always required an answer that gets to the root cause. I had to say
that the bucket elevator that was feeding the slurry was jammed
and that the mechanical department had to stop the kiln and repair
the jam because the buckets were dislodged from their chain
sprocket, that resulted in the jam.”
When Sri Raju joined CCI as CMD, Mr Narayana Raju was selected
as foreman—mechanical for kiln erection at the Yerraguntla
plant that was being set up. Some time later, when there was a
problem with the Nimach plant in Madhya Pradesh, he was sent to
troubleshoot and solve the issue, which involved changing the composition
of the raw material that was being fed into the machines.
He could figure out what the problem was and what needed to be
done because under Sri Raju’s guidance, he had learnt the whole
process to perfection, from mining to laboratory to kiln. “Quaified
engineers and project managers would be surprised how I knew all
these things, because I had no degree,” says Mr Raju. “I would tell
them that I learnt all this from my practical experience, because
B.V Raju Garu had always stressed the importance of knowledge
of every aspect of a plant.”
During another Sunday lunch with Sri Raju and his wife at
their home, he asked Mr Narayana Raju what he wanted to be in
64

The Raju family with Vice-President B.D. Jatti after the Padma Shri
award ceremony.
life. Mr Raju pondered for a while and said that his dream was to
become a manager in a company. Perhaps Sri Raju had expected
or hoped for such a reply, because he immediately gave the young
man a booklet on British Institute of Engineering Technology
(BIET), headquartered at Mumbai, and urged him to enrol for a
diploma programme.
Mr Raju enrolled in an AMSE (Associate Member of Society of
Engineers) course, specialising in mechanical engineering. Upon
completing the course successfully, he was motivated to do his
BCom through distance education. Mr Raju went on to hold various
responsibilities as technical head of plant operations both in
India and abroad. “Such was the influence of B.V Raju Garu with
his ability to mentor and nurture people who followed his advice
sincerely,“ says Mr Narayana Raju.
After six years at CCI, he joined a private sector cement company
for a brief period, and then spent 12 years in the United Arab
65

Sri Raju with Mr Vishnu Raju in the United States in 1984.
Emirates working in a plant managed by the British company
Blue Circle Industries. Then it was back to India to join Sri Raju as
Deputy General Manager—Process at Raasi Cement. He later became
Joint General Manager—Operations at Sri Vishnu Cement.
VERY HIGH STANDARDS
The same standards and expectations applied to everyone. Industrialist
Mr Vishnu Raju, Sri Raju’s grandson through his eldest
daughter Ramavathy, and carrier of his legacy as Chairman of
Sri Vishnu Education Society, remembers those expectations in a
wholly different context.
“When I was studying at the Regional Engineering College
Trichy, during my third year, 1985, I was looking forward to my
summer vacations, but a week before the vacations, I got a letter
from him, informing me that he had organized a few weeks indus-
66

trial training for me at a ceramics company in Neyveli—Neycer,
Neyveli Ceramics,” he recalls. “All my friends were going home,
but I had to go do this. I was not very happy, but anyway, I went
there. And knowing him, I knew that I couldn’t have a holiday at
the plant. He would ask me a whole lot of questions, and I decided
to be prepared. So I got a notebook, and the time I spent there, every
department I went to, whether it was production-related, quality-related,
administration-related, the time office or the canteen,
or different types of documentation, I anticipated he would ask
me all those things. I noted down every single point, including the
chemical compositions of the ceramics. When I came back to Hyderabad,
I gave him a small report in a file. He went through that.
Then he asked me a lot of questions, and most of the questions I
was able to answer.”
Ten years later, Mr Vishnu Raju had completed his higher studies
in the United States, worked for a while there, and returned to
India. Raasi Ceramics was in deep trouble, and Sri Raju asked his
grandson to go and take a look at the company. “Luckily, I still had
that notebook from Neycer,” Mr Vishnu Raju says with a laugh.
“Everything was available there—from chemical compositions to
the total system, how to run the plant. That came in very useful.
So then I understood the benefit of getting trained by him. And I
knew what a visionary he was.”
Mr K. Narasimha Murthy is one of the country’s foremost
finance consultants. He serves on the board of several leading
private sector companies, and has been associated as Director
with corporations like the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, LIC
Housing Finance, Unit Trust of India, Axis Bank and the Bombay
Stock Exchange. He has been Chairman or member of more than
40 High Level Committees both at the national and state levels, on
issues ranging from public sector bank reforms and restructuring
of Prasar Bharati, to the Commonwealth Games and the Tirumala
67

Tirupathi Devasthanam. His association with Sri Raju began in
1987, when he was hired as a consultant to help with cost reduction
programmes in the Raasi group.
“I had a contract with the company initially,” he recalls. “After
some time, I stopped bothering about all that. I knew he was a man
of his word. And his word was much more valuable than any written
and signed contract. I kept working. When I thought I should
raise a bill, I raised a bill, and I was paid. It was as simple as that.”
“He was basically a perfectionist and a strict disciplinarian,”
says Mr Murthy. “And above everything else, he valued integrity. If
it was a matter of inefficiency, he did not mind investing in training,
coaching, counselling. But on matters of integrity, there could
be no compromise. And he kept a keen watch on everyone and everything.
He would visit every factory, meticulously inspect every
detail. I would ask him, Why are you climbing these ladders and
chimneys at your age? I remember, once there was a day-long meeting
of all the senior managers, and he was not there. He joined
us only during lunchtime. This was very unusual, so I asked him
what had happened. He said, ‘I went to a factory to see how the
machines are treated when the senior managers are not around’.”
“Late at night, even after midnight, he would go to the factory
and take a round,” says Mr Rao. “He lived for his work. No other
avocation. He was an extremely rare personality.”
When you are selling a product that is basically perceived as
a commodity, that too in a highly price-regulated market, how do
you create a brand that distinguishes itself from its competitors?
The answer for Raasi Cement, and a crucial reason for its immediate
success, was Sri Raju’s obsessive emphasis on quality. Coupled
with this was his keen understanding of consumer psychology
and changing market trends.
Mr Murthy talks about the various methods Sri Raju would
employ, other than the usual quality control measures built into
68

the manufacturing processes. He would secretly have Raasi’s cement
bag samples collected from different markets and have them
tested in laboratories in Hyderabad. If he found anything amiss in
the quality of the product from any factory, he would come down
heavily on the managers there. “He would even sometimes go in
disguise himself and speak to dealers and buy cement from them,”
says Mr Murthy. “Some of the dealers would of course recognize
him and inform the managers, that your Chairman had come and
was asking around and taking samples. That kept everyone on
their toes. For Raju Garu, there could not be any compromise on
quality.”
MARKETING GURU
Mr C. Gandhiraju joined Sri Vishnu Cement in 1995 as Deputy
General Manager—Marketing. “There were three broad principles
Raju Garu had when it came to what a better product meant—best
quality, correct weight, prompt delivery.” This may sound simple,
but in reality, it involved market insight, innovative thinking and
building an unrivalled distribution ecosystem. The Raasi group
was, for instance, the first in Andhra Pradesh to change its packaging
from gunny bags to HDPE (high-density polyethylene) bags.
This cut down on pilferage. “The weight had to be absolutely correct,”
says Mr Gandhiraju. “If it was supposed be a 50-kilogram
bag, it could not have even 50 grams less. If it was half a kilo more,
that was not a problem, but never less than what had been promised
to the customer. There were times of shortage, when demand
was higher than supply. The natural tendency would have been to
cash in, but Raju Garu believed deeply in the consumer’s rights.
He would never take advantage of these situations.”
He also spotted changing market needs quicker than others
and moved fast to fulfil them. Traditionally, the prime deciding factor
for the customer had been the strength of the cement. But as
69

As a new entrant into a market with well-entrenched players, Sri Raju
decided he needed to disrupt the established distribution system.
a real estate boom began in the early 1990s, it changed to speed of
construction. Raasi responded rapidly, moving from 33-grade cement,
to launching 43-grade, and then 53-grade (“grade” stands for
compressive strength; a higher grade implies faster setting time).
And as a new entrant into a market with well-entrenched players,
Sri Raju decided he needed to disrupt the established distribution
system. Here, marketing innovation meshed beautifully with
his passion for contributing to society. Till the advent of Raasi, the
cement trade in South India was entirely the domain of Marwaris
and the Vaishya communities. Sri Raju encouraged new traders to
become Raasi dealers. He did the same with logistics, going beyond
the few dozen big transporters and giving contracts to small and
budding entrepreneurs. There was no dearth of aspiring young
men. What they had lacked till now was opportunity and a helping
hand. Here was Sri Raju providing both.
“He developed many traders and transporters, some of whom
are very big businessmen today,” says Mr Gandhiraju. “They ben-
70

efited immensely, and we benefited because they gave us their full
loyalty and commitment, and became exclusive vendors. In fact,
all of them became our assets. Raju Garu turned all our stakeholders
into our assets. And most of them were successful because he
identified and chose the right people. His judgement of people was
never wrong.”
One of the beneficiaries of this strategy happened to be, totally
coincidentally, a nephew of Sri Raju’s, Mr Bhupati Satyanarayana
Raju. We say “totally coincidentally”, because Sri Raju never distinguished
between family members and others when it came to
work. In fact, Mr Narayana Rao recalls Sri Raju instructing him
specifically: “Never do anything as a favour to anyone because he
is related to me. Go strictly by the rules, and if you need to say no,
say so. Be polite, but stay firm.”
Mr Bhupati Satyanarayana Raju had not bothered to study beyond
high school. He had been working in a factory when Raasi Cement
was set up, and decided to turn entrepreneur. He applied for
a loan to buy a truck and approached Sri Raju. Sri Raju had known
him from birth, and when he visited Kumudavalli on his own, had
often taken along the young Bhupati with him from Vijayawada,
where he had grown up. In fact, one of Mr Bhupati Satyanarayana
Raju’s amusing boyhood memories of Sri Raju is that his uncle
always bargained for a fair price with every vendor, whether it was
a vegetable shop or a vehicle for hire. So, when he approached Raasi
Cement for a transport contract, he expected no favour. He was
subjected to the same calm scrutiny from Sri Raju as all the other
aspirants. However, his uncle must have seen something in him,
for he got a contract. Today, three decades later, Mr Bhupati Satyanarayana
Raju is one of the largest transporters in the region,
with over 200 trucks criss-crossing India.
Raasi Cement also became the first company in the industry to
introduce state-level dealer conferences. “We had annual confer-
71

ences and award functions,” says Mr Gandhiraju. “Dealers were
recognized for their achievements—top dealers in the South, in
every state, at district level. The prizes ranged from gold chains to
silver ornaments to cash. This provided great motivation for the
dealers. This is now standard practice in the industry, but it was
Raju Garu who started it. People don’t remember it today, but he
was a marketing trendsetter in many ways.”
THE PEOPLE PERSON
“At the heart of his management philosophy was people,” says Mr
Murthy. “Fundamentally, he was a people’s man. He knew that organisations
are not built by machines, they are built by human
beings. And he was by nature a humane and humble person. He
would address the simplest man with the honorific ‘garu’.” “Even
in my job interview, he addressed me as ‘garu’,” recalls Mr Purnachander.
“I was instantly struck by the courtesy and respect he
showed to a young engineer candidate.”
“He had seen all sides of life, so he was at ease with people from
the highest to the humblest level of society,” says Mr Gandhiraju.
“He had worked on the shopfloor and he had been close to Prime
Ministers. At the factories, he would interact with the workers just
as if he was one of them. And he always laid a lot of emphasis
on skills upgradation. He would identify talent, then encourage
and nurture it. He could turn an average worker into a champion
through the training and backing he provided. Of course, he himself
worked extremely hard—16 or 17 hours a day sometimes. But
he didn’t just work hard. He was both a hard and smart worker.”
And he rewarded his people. When Raasi Cement’s first plant
was constructed and commissioned in record time, every worker
received an ex gratia bonus of 5 per cent of annual wages. In addition,
right from the beginning, Raasi had paid workers more than
the minimum statutory bonus—12 per cent in 1981-82, even before
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At the heart of Sri Raju’s management philosophy was people. He knew
that organisations are not built by machines, they are built by human
beings.
the plant construction had been completed.
“Raasi Cement is a high-wage company in which the average
wage of a shopfloor worker in the factory is Rs 1,250 per month and
the minimum monthly wage is Rs 1,150,” N. Pattabhiraman, then
company secretary of the company, told Business World. “Plus, 55
per cent of our workers in our Vishnupuram township in Wadapalli
village—a notified backward area—are given heavily subsidized
modern housing facilities and free water and electricity, and the
housing project is being rapidly expanded. The township is supported
by an English medium school, a dispensary manned by
two doctors and recreational facilities for employees which have
transformed life in this backward district by generating indirect
employment and raising farm incomes.”
The company also invested in workers’ and local villagers’ wel-
73

fare schemes that went well beyond any legal obligation; indeed,
almost none such requirement existed at that time for a private
sector company. Says Mr Murthy: “Raju was doing corporate social
responsibility (CSR) many years before CSR became obligatory.”
In return, Sri Raju laid down only one condition, that the
workers would be represented by one union, whatever its affiliation.
In Nalgonda, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the dominant
political influence was that of the Communists—one reason why
industrialists had baulked to venture there. But such was the level
of worker satisfaction that Raasi never experienced a whiff of
labour unrest, and achieved productivity heights that were quite
astonishing by Indian industry standards. And its union was not
affiliated to any political party. The situation was very different in
cement plants just some miles away.
Says Mr Sagi Narayana Raju: “Raju Garu would go around the
village, and whenever he found some young men sitting around,
idling, he would say: ‘What are you doing? Can you read and write?
Come tomorrow to the factory and you’ll get a job and a salary. But
you’ll have to work hard.’ Over the years he transformed the lives
and fortunes of thousands of families.”
The managers too were quite well-paid. In the early 1980s, a
management trainee started at a salary of Rs 1,200 per month plus
free residential accommodation at Vishnupuram, and could expect
to receive Rs 2,200 pus perks at the end of two years. Meanwhile,
Sri Raju had decided to take a monthly salary of Rs 1,000, with
the sole perquisite of a free residential telephone. In 1983, after
the company had started production and turned a hefty profit, an
unanimous resolution was moved at the annual general meeting,
asking him to accept a better compensation package. He refused.
Says Mr Narang: “There have been many great Indian managers
and technocrats. But what is unique about Raju Garu is that
he succeeded in three different areas. He succeeded in the private
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Sri Raju would
go around the
village, and
whenever he found
some young men
sitting around,
idling, he would
say: “ Can you
read and write?
Come tomorrow
to the factory and
you’ll get a job
and a salary. But
you’ll have to
work hard.”
75

sector, he succeeded in the public sector, he succeeded as an entrepreneur.
That is absolutely exceptional. One can’t think of any
other example like this.”
A BIG VISION
Over time, Sri Raju became keen to expand his Raasi empire beyond
Andhra Pradesh. A key to achieving a cost advantage in the
cement industry is to locate one’s plants near mine heads where
limestone is available in plenty. Raasi Cement had about 5,000
acres of mining land, and Sri Vishnu Cement about 3,300 acres.
New mining lands were acquired at Satna, Madhya Pradesh—
about 1,800 acres, and Ananthapur, Andhra—about 1,600 acres.
However, the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu was not on Sri
Raju’s radar, as he had been at Dalmiapuram for many years and
believed that he knew every limestone band in the state. He was
also quite sure that all available bands of limestone would have
already been acquired by the Dalmias, India Cements, Madras Cements
and Chettinad Cement, which were the prominent players
in Tamil Nadu.
But then, in 1995, Mr Ravichandran Rajagopal, who was running
a mini cement plant in Tamil Nadu, came to visit his collegemate
Mr Vishnu Raju, Sri Raju’s grandson. He happened to mention
that the Geological Survey of India (GSI) had explored the
Ariyalur and Sendurai regions in the state, located high-cementgrade
limestone bands and had drawn up detailed maps, which he
had got from GSI. Mr Raju informed his grandfather, and Sri Raju
was immediately excited.
The next Monday, he, along with Mr Kunjithapatham, then
Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Vishnu Cement, along
with Mr Vishnu Raju, flew to Chennai. The trip was a closely
guarded secret, since it was imperative that Raasi’s Tamil Nadu
competitors remained unaware of the wealth of limestone that
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could be lying right under their noses. The three of them and Mr
Ravichandran set off in a Tempo Traveller on a four-and-a-half
journey.
On the way lay Dalmiapuram. Mr Ravichandran was sitting
beside Sri Raju in the van, and as they passed the township, he
saw the emotions well up in him. He had run the township—even
created much of it—but had never been back there since he left for
Delhi 22 years before to lead Cement Corporation of India. “Just
for a moment, I could see his eyes fill with joyful tears of his memories.
After all, he had given so much of himself here. But it was
just a moment. Then he was his usual composed self and asked
how far the mine site was,” recalls Mr Ravichandran.
It was just 15 km away.
As soon as the van had reached the mine site, Sri Raju got off
and walked briskly into the fields, with Mr Ravichandran as his
guide, to examine some open well cutting, to check whether what
he saw in the geological maps and the bands that could be seen
through the open wells, actually matched. They did, and Sri Raju
took a deep breath of excitement. This was it.
The irony of the fact that the potential mining site was just 15
km from Dalmiapuram would certainly not have been lost on Sri
Raju. But, more importantly, it was a sort of homecoming for him.
Tamil Nadu, after all, had been his karmabhoomi for nearly two
decades. In the first 32 years of his career, he had dealt with more
Tamil workers and their families than from any other state.
The team then spent the whole day walking around various locations
in Ariyalur district where bands of limestone had been
spotted. After walking many hours in open fields in the scorching
heat with no tree cover, Sri Raju stopped and asked Mr Ravichandran:
“Ravi, how much land is available that can be purchased
immediately?” Mr Ravichandran replied cautiously that 200 acres
could perhaps be bought immediately and maybe another 100
77

Sri Raju receiving his honorary doctorate from the Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University from Andhra Governor Sri Krishna Kant.
acres could be negotiated.
“Without batting an eyelid,” says Mr Ravichandran, “he said,
Ravi, can we purchase 2,000 acres? Can you identify the bands and
trace the lands that can encapsulate these bands so that we can
plan to set up a million-tonne plant for Raasi in Tamil Nadu?” In
the hours he had spent trudging with Sri Raju across fields and
through nullahs, Mr Ravichandran had been deeply impressed by
the 75-year-old’s energy and eye for detail. Now he was amazed by
his vision and ambition. “But we have to do it without arousing
the suspicions of our Tamil Nadu competitors,” said Sri Raju.
Between 1995 and 1997, working under the radar with Mr Ravichandran’s
help on the ground, Raasi purchased 690-plus acres in
Keezhapalur village, Sendurai village and Vepur region, without
alerting competitors that Raasi was planning a Tamil Nadu plant.
Mr Ravichandran today plays a far bigger role in the B.V. Raju
legacy, but his memories of that trip to Ariyalur remain indelible.
78

THE EDUCATION DREAM
With Raasi Cement flourishing, Sri Raju now decided it was time
to pursue his other dream—education, especially women’s education.
The Raasi group had sponsored higher education for many
deserving employees. In his personal life, he had helped countless
underprivileged people (more on that in the next chapter) achieve
educational goals and have careers that would have been beyond
their imagination as children. Now he wanted to do it on a large
formal scale. What he had seen in the United States three decades
before—the contribution of wealthy Americans to educating their
nation’s citizens—had always been at the back of his mind. In the
early 1990s, he started devoting an increasing amount of time to
his education projects.
In 1992, Sri Vishnu Education Society (SVES) was registered
under the registrar of societies, with the aim of providing excellence
in education and healthcare in rural areas. It started off by
supporting students through scholarships.
But in January 1995, Sri Raju would have to deal with one of
the biggest blows in his life. Mr Narasimha Murthy remembers
the day vividly. He and Sri Raju were taking a morning flight to
Delhi for some government-related work. He had met Sri Raju at
his home, and as usual, Seetha Devi had seen off her husband with
the customary whispered sacred mantras wishing him a safe and
successful business trip. Sri Raju was Waiting List No 1 on the
flight, and as the minutes ticked by while they waited at Begumpet
airport in Hyderabad, they witnessed the rarest of rare occurrences
taking place. No one who was booked on the flight had cancelled
or not showed up. For the first time in his life, Sri Raju was going
to miss a flight.
And then, five minutes before the gates to the flight were due to
close, he received a message. Seetha Devi was no more. “Her atma
had stopped him,” says Mr Murthy. “Their marriage had been
79

made in heaven, and there was no way he could have travelled that
day.”
A day after Seetha Devi’s last rites were performed, Sri Raju
was back in his office and called Mr Murthy for a meeting. Before
the work-related conversation started, he handed over a cheque
for the payment that was due to Mr Murthy. His irreparable loss
had not managed to distract him from his duty or deviate from his
word.
In 1997, the first SVES campus started functioning at Bhimavaram
town, close to Kumudavalli, with the women’s polytechnic,
Smt B Seetha Polytechnic College.
In April 1998, Sri Raju agreed to the takeover of Raasi Cement
by the Chennai-based India Cements Ltd.
He was now nearly 78 years old. But Bhupatiraju Vissam Raju
was still not done. The fourth and last stage of life recommended
in the Hindu scriptures, sannyasa—renunciation—was not for
him, though, in many ways, he had always been a sannyasi, without
attachment to any worldly goods.
It was now time for his last innings. It was time to create a humanitarian
legacy that would live through the ages.
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CHAPTER 4
The Humanitarian
WE HAVE said before that Sri Raju’s kindness and generosity
touched thousands of lives, perhaps even hundreds of thousands.
His management style, which came straight from the heart, treated
every worker, however “lowly” his job, as a human being worthy
of the utmost respect. He provided opportunity and employment
for young people whom our society and economy may have
paid scant attention to and left behind. As Chairman of Raasi Cement,
his duty to his shareholders, some of whom had sold their
ancestral land to support his venture, was always uppermost in
his mind. He saw himself a trustee of their hard-earned money.
This humanity and generosity extended to his personal life too.
He had never forgotten his humble beginnings and he knew very
well that poverty was the cruellest suppressor of talent and potential
in India. So when he glimpsed a spark in an impoverished boy
or a young man, he instinctively stepped forward as an enabling
and empowering force. He took them under his wing and trans-
Sri Raju distributing rations and relief material for flood relief.
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Sri Raju with a few
of the boys from
impoverished families
whose education
he paid for. Several
are today successful
executives.
formed their lives for ever.
As we have mentioned earlier, Mahatma Gandhi’s idea that the
wealthy must be trustees of their wealth for the larger good of the
people appears to have resonated with him from much before he
became a wealthy man. Sri Raju’s life was the personification of
that lofty principle, right from his austere lifestyle to his countless
works of charity that helped the underprivileged and the marginalised.
Kasi Viswanadha Raju is currently in charge of the scholarships
department of SVES. He is also deeply involved in maintaining
the small museum devoted to Sri Raju’s memory on the Bhimavaram
campus. He first met his mentor when he was hired as Sri
Raju’s personal attendant as a young man.
He joined Sri Raju’s employment in 1998 and has dedicated his
life to his mentor’s memory. Sri Raju was then immersed in constructing
the various buildings on the campus. He used to stay on
the campus but needed to travel to Hyderabad frequently. As his
attendant, Mr Kasi would receive Sri Raju at the railway station
when he came down from Hyderabad and look after his personal
needs. Sri Raju gave him a room in his own apartment to stay in.
When it was time to go to Hyderabad again, he would accompany
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Sri Raju to the station and see him off safely. On several occasions,
he pleaded that he should accompany Sri Raju on his journey. After
all, his master was hardly a young man any more, and would insist
on travelling in a second class compartment because he did not
want to waste money on anything he saw as an unnecessary luxury.
But Sri Raju always waved away these suggestions; he might
have been nearing 80 and needed a walking stick now, but he was
perfectly capable of taking care of himself on an overnight train.
The educational institutes had to deal frequently with the state
government on many matters. Sri Raju could sense that Mr Kasi
had it in him to take on more responsibility. He asked him to take
charge of the business of meeting government officials for all
the routine work that needed to be done. Mr Kasi was hesitant.
This was an important job; would he be able to do it? Of course
he would, said Sri Raju, there was nothing to it. Mr Kasi started
dealing with the government clerks and began his ascent from
personal attendant to being a vital part of Sri Raju’s educational
enterprise.
Even more startling and inspiring are some other stories.
THE “DISTRICT COLLECTOR”
Srinivas Pothulothu was born in a poor family in Miryalaguda in
Nalgonda district. His father was a daily wage labourer at Raasi
Cement. Srinivas was a meritorious student, but could study till
only Class V before he came to work in Sri Raju’s house in Hyderabad
at the age of 11 in 1995. One day Sri Raju asked him if he
was interested in further education. The boy certainly was, and
showed Sri Raju his Class V marksheet. Within three days, he had
been enrolled in the prestigious St Mary’s High School. But the
school was English-medium, and the boy knew no English. Sri
Raju organized tuitions for him so he could pick up the language
quickly. All school expenses were borne by him.
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Sri Raju donated one acre of land to the NGO JMJ Sneha Sadan for
service to girl children.
After Srinivas scored good marks in his Class X board examinations,
Sri Raju sent him to Vignan Junior College near Guntur.
This was a residential college, and the annual expenses came to
about Rs 1 lakh. Sri Raju took care of that. Two years later, Srinivas
passed his intermediates with 86 per cent marks. But right
around this time, he heard that Sri Raju had been admitted to hospital.
A few days later, he passed away on 8 June, 2002. “Suddenly
all my dreams were shattered,” says Mr Srinivas. “Who would support
me now?”
But he found support. Sri Raju might no longer have been
there, but his work was going to be carried on by his grandson Mr
K.V. Vishnu Raju, who had been brought up by his grandfather and
was steeped in the values that Sri Raju had lived by. Mr Vishnu
Raju told him not to worry; all his educational expenses would be
met. Srinivas studied chemical engineering at Chaitanya Bharathi
Institute of Technology (CBIT), graduated with good grades and
joined the cement industry. Today he is Chief Manager (Production)
at ACC’s Chandrapur plant, with a capacity of three million
tonnes per annum.
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“He used to tell me: you’ll one day become a district collector!”
says Mr Srinivas. “I could not fulfill that dream of his, but I’ve
grown in the cement industry. I want to be director of my plant.
That is my goal. And I also want to be an entrepreneur like him.”
“I cannot imagine what my life would have been like if I had
not met him,” he says. “Whatever I am today is because of him. He
changed the fortunes of my family.” He remembers one particular
day when he was in Class VII. Sri Raju used to take the boy in his
car for his coaching classes. But that day, Sri Raju had left early,
so Srinivas took the bus to his classes and back. Sri Raju reached
home and got worried: would the boy be able to come home by himself
? He called up the coaching class, he phoned his office, even
sent his car back to find out where Srinivas was. He waited up till
the boy reached home. “He cared that much for me,” says Mr Srinivas.
“And he was the chairman of Raasi Cement, and I was just a
boy from nowhere. I cannot forget that day ever in my life. He was
like a parent to me.”
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Mr Sri Ram Mohan is a software entrepreneur, having started his
cloud security company in 2019. He has been in the software industry
for 16 years, working in some of India’s major firms, including
a two-year stint in the United States. He comes from what
he calls “a very basic farmer family, my father couldn’t even sign
his name”. But even as a boy, he knew that education was the only
passport he could get to a better life. He studied in a government
school, and then a polytechnic. In 1997, he came to Sri Raju, looking
for a job.
He had carried all his academic certificates with him, and Sri
Raju was impressed. But he had a question. Why do you want to
get into a job now? he asked. With your academic prowess, you
should go in for higher education. “I didn’t have confidence in my-
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At the inauguration of the school that Sri Raju built at Seetha Devi’s
village Dirusumarru.
self, but he had,” recalls Mr Sri Ram Mohan. “I just wanted a job at
that time.” Sri Raju told the young man that he would employ him
in Raasi, and there were two options: he could work at the head
office, or he could go to one of the factories. He advised him to take
the head office job because this would give him time to study.
Mr Sri Ram Mohan joined the electronic data processing department
at Raasi Cement, which gave him time to prepare for
the engineering entrance examinations. He got his admission in
engineering, but unfortunately this coincided with the takeover
of Raasi Cement, and Sri Raju leaving the company. Mr Sri Ram
Mohan approached him and told him about his situation. Without
any hesitation, Sri Raju told him to go ahead with his engineering
course, and that he would pick up the expenses. On completing
his graduation, Mr Sri Ram Mohan sat for GATE, the common entrance
examination for engineering post-graduate studies, and got
an all-India 30th rank.
Sri Raju was delighted. “He cited my example in quite a few
places, including on TV,” says Mr Sri Ram Mohan. “He would keep
saying that if you can give people education, they will bloom.” Mr
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Sri Ram Mohan did his master’s in computer science at the Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore, and there was no looking back for
him after that.
As he speaks about Sri Raju, Mr Sri Ram Mohan’s eyes well
up. “Today I give money to people in his name,” he says. “A donor
creates a donor. That is the only way I can pay tribute to him. If
I can even do 10 per cent of what he did for me, I’ll consider myself
lucky. Today I am in a position to help the poor, and I must
do my duty.” Through his generosity and humanity, Sri Raju had
created a chain of paying one’s dues forward, that continues two
decades after his passing away. Not that he had ever told the people
he helped to do this. But his own example was enough. “The only
thing he ever asked of me was that I look after my parents,” says
Mr Sri Ram Mohan. “And that I have done. Raju Garu lifted my
whole family to the next level in society.”
THE TECHIE
Mr Narasimha Swamy is today an executive at one of the world’s
leading information technology firms, Cognizant Technology
(2019 revenues: $16.8 billion). Currently posted in India, he has
spent five years in the United States on assignments. His family
owned a bit of farming land but that was not enough. In addition
to tilling his own land, his father also worked as labour on other
farms.
After studying till Class IX at his native village of Mulalanka
in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, he moved to his grandmother’s
home in Dirusumarru village in West Godavari district.
Dirusumarru happened to be where Sri Raju’s wife Seetha Devi
hailed from. In the year 2000, when Mr Narasimha Swamy was
in Class X, Sri Raju happened to be visiting the village and announced
a scholarship for two years for the student who topped
the Class X examinations. Mr Narasimha Swamy stood first in the
87

exams, and he travelled to Bhimavaram to collect his scholarship.
At the under-construction campus, someone suggested that he
try to meet his benefactor. He waited for five or six hours on the
first day, but Sri Raju was busy and could not meet him. But the
next day, he found time to call the boy into his office. When he saw
that Narasimha Swamy had got 96 out of 100 in mathematics, he
asked him how he managed that, studying in a government school.
The boy explained his daily routine of studying to him, and Sri
Raju suggested that he sit for the entrance test for the polytechnic.
Narasimha Swamy was unsure; at the polytechnic, the teaching
medium was English, a language alien to him, and the workload
might be too much. Also, he was needed back at his village, to help
his father. Sri Raju assured him that he would be able to cope, and
said that he would pay half the fees, which, at that time, was Rs
10,500 a year.
Narasimha Swamy returned home, but his parents were disbelieving,
so the boy did not follow up on Sri Raju’s offer. After a few
days, two men came to the village, looking for him. They had been
sent by Sri Raju, to tell his parents that he would pay the full fees.
His parents agreed, and Narasimha Swamy joined the polytechnic.
While at the polytechnic, Narasimha Swamy would periodically
go to Sri Raju to inform him of his progress. Pleased with the
reports, Sri Raju bought him a scientific calculator, which is still
one of Mr Narasimha Swamy’s prized possessions. At the end of
the first year, he had topped the polytechnic, and Sri Raju made
enquiries and discovered that he was among the highest scorers
in the whole state. At their next meeting, Sri Raju realized that the
boy was cycling 12 kilometers every day to come to college. “Come
stay with me at my home on the campus,” he said.
Sri Raju would leave home every morning at nine for work and
return only at night. If he came home late, he would always ask
whether the boy had had dinner. After dinner, Sri Raju would sit
88

Although a staunch Hindu, Sri Raju had equal respect for all religions.
down with his sketchbook, working on the civil engineering drawings
for the various campus buildings being constructed, and the
boy would sit by him, learning. “I learnt a lot,” says Mr Narasimha
Swamy. “But above all, I learnt discipline, just watching him.”
And then, disaster struck. Sri Raju passed away. Again, Mr K.V.
Vishnu Raju stepped into the breach. The boy shifted to the hostel,
and his fees were taken care of. Mr Vishnu Raju encouraged him
to sit for the engineering entrance examination. After completing
his engineering, for which once more all his fees were paid for, he
went to Mr Vishnu Raju for career guidance. He himself was inclined
to being a lecturer in the engineering college, but Mr Vishnu
Raju dissuaded him. Information technology was a sunrise industry,
he said, and he should become a software engineer—he had
a bright future waiting for him there. And so it was.
Reminiscing about Sri Raju, sitting at the headquarters of Sri
Vishnu Education Society, Mr Narasimha Swamy cannot hold
back his tears. He remembers the small acts of kindness that a
village boy had never expected. “One evening, he came back a bit
early and found that I was resting in my room,” he recalls. “He realized
that something was wrong. I had a splitting headache. Raju
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Sri Raju’s eldest grandson Mr K.V. Vishnu Raju has been carrying on
his grandfather’s humanitarian and educational work.
Garu immediately sent me off in his car to the hospital, where I
got my eyes tested. The doctor told me that I needed to get glasses,
and Raju Garu paid for that too.”
Sri Raju’s cook wanted the boy to help her with some household
chores, but when Sri Raju came to know of this, he firmly
forbade this; the boy was here to study, not to work. “When today I
tell my colleagues about him, they are astonished,” says Mr Narasimha
Swamy. “Could such a man have ever existed? I had been
just a village boy, and I was now working in America!”
These are the personal stories of just a few people whose life
Sri Raju transformed.
AND THE LEGACY LIVES ON
His grandson Mr Vishnu Raju has inherited Sri Raju’s vision and
carries on his work. When Raasi Cement and Vishnu Cement were
taken over by India Cements, a number of competent managers
from the two companies lost their jobs, as often happens in the
case of mergers and acquisitions. Mr Vishnu Raju was then in the
90

process of buying what would become Anjani Cement. He offered
all these managers jobs. The only thing was that no plant existed
yet, the negotiations were still on. So, for six months, these trusted
managers, like Mr Sagi Narayana Raju, were paid full salaries, till
the plant had been acquired and they could start working.
This was one of the greatest lessons Mr Vishnu Raju had learnt
from his grandfather. That business success depends ultimately on
efficient and committed managers and engineers, and it is the responsibility
of the owners to take care of them in their times of
trouble. It is this empathy that has kept employees extraordinarily
loyal and steadfast to the cause.
Mr Sagi Narayana Raju’s story is particularly interesting. After
he retired from Anjani Cement, Mr Vishnu Raju called him
over to Visakhapatnam from Hyderabad. He had a bakery plant
there and he asked Mr Narayana Raju to take charge of the technical
and operational aspects. “At that time, I didn’t know the difference
between a cake and a pastry,” laughs Mr Narayana Raju. “So
I went back to what I used to do in my early career days, read up
on how bakeries operate, study all the processes, etc. Today I run
that plant.”
KUMUDAVALLI
The village of Kumudavalli, where he had spent his childhood,
remained very close to Sri Raju’s heart, and the people of the village
still remember Kumudavalli’s most illustrious son with great
respect and fondness. Says Mr Nadimpalli Subrahmanyam Raju,
whose family home shared a compound wall with Sri Raju’s ancestral
home: “He is the pride of our village and a role model for
all of us. Yet he was such a humble person. I was more than four
decades younger than him, and he and my uncle, Nadimpalli Raghava
Raju, were great friends, yet he would always address me as
‘garu’.” Mr Subrahmanyam Raju joined Raasi Cement in 1991, and
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Interacting with children at the Raasi Cement school.
is today Deputy General Manager (Administration), SVES.
The village library—Sri Veeresalinga Kavi Samaja Grandalayam—holds
a special pride of place in Kumudavalli. Originally
set up in a hut in 1897, today the library is a three-storied building,
thanks to a large extent to donations from Sri Raju. But more than
his money, what is impressive is how Sri Raju’s principle of education
being the most powerful means to uplift a society has percolated
through the village and remains a living truth.
“On Sundays and holidays, Raju Garu would have an afternoon
nap,” recalls Mr Subrahmanyam Raju. “After that, he would be in
the best of moods. He would talk about his childhood memories in
the village, and he would tell me stories about the freedom fighters
from Kumudavalli. He was extremely proud of his village. And he
had great respect for Sri Bhupati Raju Thirupati Raju, the founder
of the library.”
Indeed, Sri Raju had wanted to start his educational venture
in Kumudavalli. However, the amount of land he needed was not
available. So the campus was built in the neighbouring Kovvada
village.
Kumudavalli today boasts 100 per cent literacy, and the library
is its pride and joy. The village even imposes a “library dowry”; for
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every wedding in the village, the family has to donate something
to the library, even if it’s just Rs 10. Every Diwali, each household
has to pay up Rs 20. All collections go into the corpus fund. The
interest on the fund is used for day-to-day and other maintenance
expenditure of the library. It houses tens of thousands of books,
lovingly cared for, from age-old palm-leaf scriptures to recent PhD
theses—every research scholar from the surrounding area has to
submit a copy of their thesis here. Books are not lent out. Those
who wish to read come to the library.
The India head of a giant multinational insurance company,
an IIT-IIM alumnus whose parents hail from Kumudavalli, recalls
how, when he visited the village during his school summer holidays,
he would spend his afternoons in the cool refuge of the library,
reading and expanding his horizons.
Whenever Sri Raju visited Kumudavalli, he would take the sarpanch
with him and go around the whole village including Harijanpet,
where the Dalits lived. He would ask after the people’s welfare
and diligently note down their concerns. And he would make
sure that action was taken to address the issues. This was done
through the relevant authorities, but sometimes he did not wait
for them, and decided to move on his own. He constructed gravel
roads to replace all the kuchcha roads in the village.
When he discovered that the village school still offered education
only till Class VII, just as it had done when he was a child, and
still operated from huts, he had the huts torn down and built a concrete
structure to house the school. He requested the local MLA to
make the school a full-fledged and complete one, up to Class X, and
this was done. But, given his determined and meticulous nature,
he did not stop with that. He kept track of the performance of the
school students in the board examinations. He arranged for extra
hours of study in the school and made sure that the school maintained
a 100 per cent pass rate.
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Sri Raju’s residence in Kumudavalli village, which is now the Dr BV
Raju Knowledge Centre, with well-equipped physics, chemistry and
biology laboratories that serve the needs of underfunded government
schools.
And his heart had always beaten for the poor, the underprivileged
and the marginalized. He donated his own land for homeless
villagers to build their homes, especially the poor and so-called
lower castes. He supported the Anganwadi in the village. Revathi
Devi, the Anganwadi teacher in the school, still recalls Sri Raju
with great reverence. He had told her that she must take care of
the children, and he would take care of their families. So grateful
are the people of Harijanpet to Sri Raju that on his passing, they
pooled their money to build a statue of him.
“But all the buildings he constructed or donated to Kumudavalli—the
community hall, the kalyana mandapam, he didn’t name
any of them after himself,” says Mr Subrahmanyam Raju. “He
named them all after his parents and his parents’ portraits were
put up in the entrance halls.”
Even Sri Raju’s residence at Kumudavalli has been dedicated to
the pursuit of his vision of access to high-quality education for all.
After he passed away, his grandson Mr K.V. Vishnu Raju wanted to
dedicate the house for something useful for the community. Many
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The Kumudavalli village library holds a special pride of place in the
village. Originally set up in a hut in 1897, today the library is a threestoried
building, thanks to a large extent to donations from Sri Raju.
ideas came from the villagers—a kalyana mandapam or marriage
hall, a village community hall and so on. However, knowing his
grandfather better than anyone alive, Mr Vishnu Raju settled
for the idea of creating a “Knowledge Centre” to pay tribute to the
selfless work of his grandfather for the schoolchildren in the area.
The result was the Dr B.V. Raju Knowledge Centre, which has
well-equipped physics, chemistry and biology laboratories that
serve the needs of underfunded government schools. The Centre
provides lab facilities for students from Class VI to Class X from
dozens of nearby schools which lack laboratory facilities for their
students. Schedules are drawn up for various schools and classes,
time slots allotted, and the children come in buses owned by the
Knowledge Centre to do their experiments and learn. In addition,
computer fundamentals and basic English communication skills,
vital to survive and thrive in today’s world, are taught at the Centre.
Sri Raju had decided that no child should suffer from the lack
of educational infrastructure that he himself had suffered, growing
up in this underdeveloped region. The B.V. Raju Knowledge
Centre is a fitting tribute to that silent pledge.
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With the bishop, nuns and workers at the Srungavruksham Leprosy Centre.
We already know of his commitment to providing employment
to the deserving. Mr Ravikumar Raju, a resident of the village, remembers
an incident when, passing through the village in his car,
Sri Raju noticed a group of young men sitting idle by the roadside.
Upon enquiry, he came to know that most of them had completed
their engineering diploma courses but were unemployed. He
immediately asked them to go to Raasi Cement and apply. Twenty-three
young men got jobs the next day. Many of them today occupy
senior positions in industry. He had given them an opportunity
and placed his trust on them, and very few ever abused that trust.
“Recommendations for jobs didn’t work with him, even if it
was a minister who was recommending,” says Mr Subrahmanyam
Raju. “But if you came from a poor family and were meritorious,
he would always give you a chance. Above all, he respected hard
work and honesty. But he was also a very tough boss. If you did
not give your 100 per cent, he would not spare you. And it didn’t
matter if you were a close relative. All that didn’t matter to him at
all. Your work was everything.”
But perhaps nothing exemplifies Sri Raju’s commitment to the
most neglected and the most helpless in society than his work with
leprosy patients.
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THE “CURSED” OUTCASTS
For thousands of years, leprosy was thought to be a curse of the
gods, a punishment for sin, or a hereditary condition. It is none
of these things. In fact, it is not a deadly disease, and hardly infectious—it
takes years of living in close proximity to an untreated
patient to catch it. It is perhaps the oldest disease known to man,
and the earliest written records describing true leprosy came from
India around the period 600 BC. But since ancient times, the word
“leprosy” has invoked the disturbing imagery of diseased and disfigured
bodies. The term has been so heavily stigmatised that it
has become synonymous with abandonment, social isolation, and
condemnation to a lifetime at the margins of society. Indeed, historically
the rights of people with leprosy have rarely been prioritised,
even in the developed world. For instance, in the United
States, it was only in 1975 that policies of isolation for those affected
were disbanded. Today, in many countries, including India,
patients continue to live as outcasts, their only possible means of
income being to be a beggar.
When the nuns from St Mary’s Convent in Bhimavaram approached
Sri Raju for help in their work to take care of leprosy
patients, he came forward without any hesitation.
The convent was running a small hospital for leprosy sufferers.
Sri Raju provided 30 beds for the hospital, but his involvement
did not stop there. He would visit the hospital, check how it was
working, and often expressed his dream that this should become
a model hospital for other similar facilities. He would spend time
with the patients, distribute rice and medicines to them, and every
time he visited, he would ask the nuns how else he could help. He
would celebrate some special occasions with the patients, including
his own birthday. His unspoken assurance to the patients was
that they might have been forsaken by society, but he would always
be with them, for them.
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Interacting with patients at the Srungavruksham Leprosy Centre.
“He was a man of God,” says Sister Selina of St Mary’s. “He
never spoke much, but his actions were much louder than his
words.” He would give the nuns Rs 50,000 every year to buy medicines
and made it clear that he trusted that the money would be
used correctly and wisely; there was no need for the nuns to submit
any bills. For a man of god, asking for invoices was an insult to
both him and the people he was giving the money to.
At the leprosy centre at Srungavruksham, Sister Daniela says
that Sri Raju’s life was like that of Jesus Christ. The hospital used
to buy rice from the market. Sri Raju offered to give the centre a
paddy field where the nuns could grow the rice themselves. When
the nuns explained that this was certainly not their area of expertise,
he made a fixed deposit of Rs 10 lakh into the hospital’s name,
so that the nuns could meet their requirements from the interest
generated.
Sister Alphonsa had met Sri Raju only twice, but she remembers
him vividly for his simplicity and humanity. “He would speak
with everyone the exact same way,” she recalls. “There was no
class, creed, religion in his mind. He would sit with the patients,
chat with them, spend time with them. He was an inspiration for
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all. I don’t think I’ve seen a kinder person than him in my life.”
Smt Kona Narasamma and Smt Biti Lakshmi are leprosy patients
who have been living in the centre for more than two decades
now. They cherish their memories of Sri Raju. “He would
come here quite often,” says Smt Kona Narasamma. “He would ask
us if we had any problems, and if we mentioned something, he
would see to it that it got fixed as soon as possible.” “All of us wept
when we heard of his passing away,” says Smt Biti Lakshmi. “It
was so sudden. We think of him every day.”
There are two leprosy colonies near Bhimavaram, at Srungavruksham
and Gunupudi. Mr Veerraju, president of the Srungavruksham
colony, informs us that at present there are 72 residents
living there. The Gunupudi colony has 45 people. “Leprosy
patients moved here some 40 years ago when they had no place
to stay,” he says. “The Collector provided shelters, and then after
some years, Raju Garu came. He started supporting the colony.”
Sri Raju built a school for the children, where they can study till
Class V. He constructed a prayer hall, where Christian prayer sessions
are held on Sundays, and pujas on Mondays.
We enter the spacious, clean and gracefully decorated prayer
hall. Evening is approaching; the sun is now low on the horizon.
Many colony residents sit on the floor, spending some time here in
silence and quietude before they return to their homes and their
daily chores. Outside, a few children are playing and getting dusty.
One cannot tell the difference between this little colony and any
other small and peaceful Indian village.
“Raju Garu took care of us like a father would take care of his
children,” says Mr Veerraju. “He would regularly visit us. And he
expressed his affection both through his words and through actions.
When he said something, he did it. He assured us that he
would provide everything we needed, including medicines. He
started giving monthly pensions to the families. Depending on in-
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The Someswaralayam temple in Gunupudi,whose Shiva lingam is
draped with a protective layer of silver that was provided by Sri Raju.
come and family size, he would give Rs 50, Rs 75 or Rs 100. He would
send rations every fortnight or every month. He set up monthly
medical camps for us.”
And every promise Sri Raju made has been adhered to by Mr
Vishnu Raju. All the programmes that Sri Raju started are still
on. Today, in addition to monthly pensions and medicines, 25 kg
of rice are donated to every family four or five times a year. “The
care and love that Raju Garu extended to us has been continued by
Vishnu Raju Garu,” says Mr Veerraju.
BOWING TO THE GODS
The Someswaralayam temple in Gunupudi, built in the 3rd century
CE, is one of the five Pancharama Kshetra temples in Andhra
Pradesh. It is a temple which Sri Raju would often visit with his
wife Seetha Devi.
The legend goes that the powerful rakshasa king Tarakasura
was invincible in the war between the devas and asuras due to
the power of the Shiva lingam he owned. Whenever his body was
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cut into pieces, the parts magically reunited and Tarakasura rose
again. So, following Lord Vishnu’s advice, the devas broke up the
Shiva lingam, kept its five pieces apart and built temples over them,
so they could not unite again. Thus was Tarakasura defeated.
In addition to the Shiva lingam, the Somarama complex also has
temples of Lord Sriram, Hanuman, and the goddess Annapurna.
A man of deep and humble devotion, Sri Raju donated the
money to build the temple’s monumental nine-storied rajagopuram—entrance
tower, which is supposed to radiate positive energy
to devotees as they pass through it. He also donated cement for the
construction of the kalyana mandapam. The Shiva lingam itself
is draped with a protective layer of silver that was provided by Sri
Raju.
A village called Kopalle, near Bhimavaram, had set up a trust
to do charity work. This trust wanted to construct a temple in
Bhimavaram town on land that it owned. The trust approached
Sri Raju for realising the villagers’ dream. Sri Raju’s response
perhaps went beyond the trust’s expectations. He stepped up to
finance the entire project. The Sri Padmavathi Venkateswara
Swamy Devasthanam in Bhimavaram was built with two temples
and two mandapams, along with guest rooms to facilitate marriages
and local events in the temple premises. Sri Raju was keenly
involved in the project, watching its progress. The temple complex
construction was completed a few months after he passed away.
It was perhaps Sri Raju’s biggest one-time act of philanthropy.
Also his last. “It was as if he was living on to see this last work of
his completed,” says a senior executive who had known Sri Raju
intimately. The temple complex, with its tall spire, today remains a
witness and a reminder of a great man, a selfless karmayogi, who
transformed innumerable lives when he was alive, and whose legacy
continues to give thousands a better life, even after he is no
more.
101

With the Kanchi
Kamakoti at the
Sri Padmavathi
Venkateswara Swamy
Devasthanam in
Bhimavaram, which
Sri Raju constructed.
What was astonishing to this writer as he went around meeting
people who had worked with Sri Raju, or been fortunate enough to
be beneficiaries of his generosity or receive his blessings, is that
many of them spoke of him in the present tense. “Raju Garu is a
man who…” “The Founder-Chairman always insists on…” “If he
says it can be done…” This, nearly two decades after Sri Raju has
left the physical realm. The mark he left on these people is indelible.
In their hearts, he is as alive as ever. And their lives and work
follow the principles and precepts that they learnt from him, and
which he himself followed without fail till his last day on earth.
The last word should perhaps go to Sister Selina of St Mary’s
Convent. “Even today I go and sit at his memorial inside the education
complex sometimes,” she says. “Sitting there, I feel so serene.
It’s like I’m imbibing the aroma of his spiritual fragrance.”
She loves it when she sees students sit near the memorial, happily
studying or chatting. “The memorial has such sanctity,” she says.
“Its air has a positive impact on the minds of everyone nearby.”
Sri Raju may no longer be with us, but his spirit lives on for
ever.
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CHAPTER 5
The Educationist
AS RAASI Cement prospered, Sri Raju turned his attention to a
dream that he had nurtured for many years. Three decades ago,
in 1963, under a government of India scheme, he had been sent
for a one-year programme for Professional Management Development
at Harvard Business School. Apart from what he learnt in
the classroom, one of the areas that most impressed him about the
United States was the American university system, a significant
part of which had been funded by the philanthropy of wealthy
businessmen. Billionaires like John D. Rockefeller (University of
Chicago), Leland Stanford (Stanford University); James Buchanan
Duke (Duke University), George Eastman (MIT), Cornelius Vanderbilt
(Yale University, Columbia University’s College of Physicians
and Surgeons), and Andrew Carnegie (Carnegie Mellon
University) had donated huge amounts of their wealth to foster
higher education, and sometimes spent their entire retired lives
helping create institutions of learning that would form the bedrock
of the country’s progress.
Sri Raju was the general manager in a cement company then,
definitely not a billionaire. But he made a silent vow to himself.
He knew how education had empowered him to break the shackles
imposed on him by history. His grandson Mr K.V. Vishnu Raju
remembers Sri Raju telling him about the US universities when
he was a boy. “He used to say that if I ever have the means, I’ll do
something about education,” recalls Mr Vishnu Raju, who is today
the carrier of his grandfather’s legacy as Chairman of Sri Vishnu
Education Society. He remembers Sri Raju giving him books on
Carnegie and Vanderbilt to read.
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This bare and barren land would one day be the home of a clutch of
India’s finest private science and engineering colleges.
In 1984, the then-chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, N.T. Rama
Rao, visited the United States. He took along three Telugu industrialists,
Mr K.V.K. Raju, the founder of the Nagarjuna group; Dr
Anji Reddy of Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, and Sri Raju. Since the visit
coincided with a college break from Mr Vishnu Raju, then in his
third year of engineering, he accompanied Sri Raju.
After the official visit was over, Sri Raju and his young grandson
travelled around the US for two weeks. He again spoke about
the great universities and the public library system that had been
founded by American billionaires. “Among the places we visited
was Carnegie Mellon University,” says Mr Vishnu Raju. “And
I remember being impressed how every American village had a
beautiful library. I didn’t know exactly what my grandfather had
in mind then, but I could make out that he was thinking of doing
something.”
Sri Raju was at that time also planning to set up a polyester
yarn firm. He had acquired 100 acres of land at Narsapur, 55 km
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from Hyderabad for erecting the plant.
However, for various reasons, the polyester plans did not work
out. But the land bought for the factory would one day come in
very useful.
With Raasi Cement successful, Sri Raju had both the means
and the time—in fact, throughout his career, Sri Raju seemed to
have the amazing ability to expand time to suit his work objectives.
In 1992, Sri Vishnu Educational Society was registered with the
aim of providing excellence in education and healthcare in rural
India. It started off with the awarding scholarships to deserving
students from financially weak backgrounds. But Sri Raju had far
bigger things in mind.
A PASSION FOR WOMEN’S EDUCATION
The same year, the Andhra Pradesh government invited applications
from the private sector to set up engineering colleges. At that
time, the state was behind neighbours Karnataka and Maharashtra
in the number of engineering institutes. This was something
Sri Raju had been waiting for, and he had 100 acres of land at Narsapur
lying free to build a campus.
The government committee approved the Narsapur site, but
the opposition political parties vehemently opposed the government
move. Finally, the government dropped the idea of letting the
private sector set up new institutes of higher education.
In 1996, the Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP)
came to power in the state and revived the proposal, even though,
ironically, it had been the TDP’s opposition that had led the earlier
government to drop the same plan.
So Sri Raju began his efforts again. In 1997, the B.V. Raju Institute
of Technology (BVRIT) began functioning from a temporary
campus in Hyderabad and by the end of 1999 shifted to the Narsapur
campus.
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However, while governments dithered on allowing the private
sector into engineering, Sri Raju had hardly been sitting idle. Sadly,
this may also have had to do with the greatest personal tragedy
that struck him. In 1995, Seetha Devi passed away, the quiet lady
who had stood by his side for more than 60 years.
“In our family, the saying was that she brought luck to him,”
says Mr Vishnu Raju. “The story goes that when the match was
being fixed, and my grandfather was just a teenager then and she
was just nine or 10 years old, a fortune-teller said that whichever
house she goes to, she would bring a lot of luck. And she indeed
did.”
Sri Raju was heartbroken when she passed away, quite suddenly.
“I never remember seeing him like that, so grief-stricken,” recalls
Mr Vishnu Raju. “Then, a couple of months after she died, he
brought us all together and said: Let’s do something in education.”
She had left him in January 1995, and, never a man to sit still
when he had a project in mind, by summer he had worked out the
plans. He would set up institutes that did not violate any government
rules, and he would set them up in Bhimavaram, the town
closest to Sri Raju’s village Kumudavalli.
Land was acquired on the outskirts of Bhimavaram. This
seemed an odd choice of location to many for setting up institutions
for higher studies. West Godavari district was an underdeveloped
region. Bhimavaram was hardly a large city; nor could it
claim any great infrastructure or connectivity. The nearest city
of Vijayawada was several hours by road, and Hyderabad was an
overnight train journey. Why would students come here to study?
More importantly, how would Sri Raju get quality faculty to relocate
to Bhimavaram for what was essentially an education start-up
by a man who had no previous track record in that field?
But, as had been the case throughout his life, the naysayers
had no effect on Sri Raju’s thinking. And in this case, he may have
106

At the foundation-laying ceremony of the Sri Vishnu College of
Pharmacy at the Bhimavaram campus.
also been driven by a deeply emotional logic. Bhimavaram was
the place Seetha Devi had loved the most, more than Hyderabad
or Delhi or Dalmiapuram. This was her home; this was where her
heart had always been. Her husband’s career had meant that he
travelled frequently and extensively, but she had never been interested
in travelling, preferring to stay at home. Her favourite holidays
too had always been at Bhimavaram, in and around which
she had many friends and relatives. If Sri Raju wished to pay tribute
to her, build a memorial to her, it had be at Bhimavaram.
As for the practical arguments, his logic was simple. One, this
was the district where he had grown up. And the lack of good educational
facilities in the region was all the more reason for setting
up his colleges here. He himself had to go to Banaras, three nights
by train at that time, to study engineering. It was high time that
engineering education came here. Two, if the educational venture
became successful—and he would make it a success—it would
have significant multiplier effects. With a new population of stu-
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The Bhimavaram campus being constructed.
dents and teachers coming in, commerce would grow, new businesses
would be set up, good infrastructure would arrive by itself.
Mr P. Krishnaganga Raju, a close friend and associate, assisted Sri
Raju during the purchase of land for the Bhimavaram campus and
in constructing it.
The first educational institute Sri Raju set up was a women’s
polytechnic. He had never forgotten that his higher education and
his career success had been made possible by his mother’s vision
and sacrifice. When his father had been sceptical, she had pledged
her jewellery, including her oddiyanam, the bridal hip-belt, in the
Imperial Bank of India (today’s State Bank of India), to pay for his
engineering education. Sri Raju knew how empowering women
through education could have a transformational effect on society.
This was his gift to his late mother, who had never learnt to sign
her name, but had always understood the value of education. And
it would be in remembrance of his wife, his pillar of strength all
through his life and career.
In 1997, Smt B. Seetha Polytechnic (SBSP) opened its doors. So
did the Shri Vishnu College of Pharmacy (SVCP), the first private
pharmacy institute in Andhra Pradesh.
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CAMPUS BHIMAVARAM
In 1998, once he had quit industry, Sri Raju devoted all his energies
to spreading education. He had never believed in doing anything
small. What had to be done, had to be done on a grand scale. Initially,
he had thought of acquiring 10 acres of land outside Bhimavaram.
But he kept expanding, adding another 60 acres to the
campus by the time he passed away. Since then, SVES has acquired
another 10 acres. In all this, his grandson was by his side, running
around Delhi getting permissions from various agencies, accompanying
him to meetings.
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With the BVRIT faculty team. As he had always done in his corporate
career, Sri Raju took extreme care to pick the right people for the right
jobs.
But then the Chandrababu Naidu government threw what
looked like another spanner in the works. It said it would give
permission for only one engineering college in a single revenue
division. Bhimavaram already had a well-established engineering
college, the Sagi Rama Krishnam Raju Engineering College, set up
in 1979.
But such issues had never deterred Sri Raju. He came up with
a simple solution. He said he would set up a women’s engineering
college. At that time, there was only one women’s engineering college
in Andhra, in Hyderabad. “Once he did that, the government
was again confused and we got the permission for the land,” says
Mr Vishnu Raju.
In 2001, the Shri Vishnu Engineering College for Women
(SVECW) was established, the largest higher education institute
in the state for women. Dr D.R. Raju, former Principal of Sri Venkateswara
University College of Engineering, became the first
Principal of SVECW.
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Sri Raju had been a manager in the private sector, then a chief
executive in the public sector, and finally an entrepreneur. Perhaps
he knew that educationist would be the last role he would
play. Perhaps his whole life, his whole career had led up to this,
when he would give back what he had earned through intelligence,
courage, determination and honesty, and pass on these values to
yet-to-come generations. This would the greatest legacy he could
leave behind.
RECRUITING THE BEST
As in everything he had ever done, he was a perfectionist in his education
project. From constructing the campus to hiring the best
people he could find, he left nothing to chance. His energy, now that
he was in his 70s, left people astonished.
He built an office and a small house for himself on the campus
and started the building work. In the beginning, he would spend
the weekdays in Hyderabad, looking after the affairs of Raasi
Cement, and the weekends in Bhimavaram. In time, this was reversed.
He started spending most of the week on the campus, supervising
the construction work. With his solar topee and walking
stick, he would be at the site from morning till evening. And his
office, as one of his assistants remembers, was just a simple table
and chair, with all sorts of building material piled up against the
walls. It was a practical and austere office, devoted to work and
nothing else. There were no frills, but then, Sri Raju had never had
any time for frills.
Even as the campus expanded, he continued supervising the
new construction works. Dr Dasika Suryanarayana is currently
Director of Vishnu Institute of Technology. He vividly remembers
the last time he saw Sri Raju. It was a blistering summer day in
2002, and Sri Raju was overseeing the laying of the slabs for the
roof of the grand auditorium that was being built. He was then
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The inauguration of Smt B. Seetha Polytechnic at Bhimavaram in
1997, named in memory of Sri Raju’s beloved wife.
82 years old. When he saw Sri Raju up there, Dr Suryanarayana
climbed the ladder to the roof and asked him to go back to his
room and rest. He would stand there, he said, and make sure that
the work was done right. Sri Raju smiled, put a hand on Dr Suryanarayana’s
shoulder and said: “I have been doing this all my life.
Don’t worry about me. You are a teacher. You do your job, let me
do mine.” A few days later, on 8 June, Sri Raju passed away in Hyderabad.
As he had always done, Sri Raju took extreme care to pick the
right people for the right jobs. Dr D. Basava Raju, Director of Shri
Vishnu College of Pharmacy, was a 43-year-old professor at the Birla
Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) at Pilani when he
met Sri Raju. Sri Raju convinced him to move back to his home
state. He would take care of all his and his family’s needs, Sri Raju
promised. In return he wanted Dr Basava Raju’s commitment. Dr
Raju took a career risk and joined, and has never left.
The story of Dr Suryanarayana’s recruitment is an interest-
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An external view of Smt B. Seetha Polytechnic, the first institute set up
on the Bhimavaram campus.
ing one. In 2001, with a post-graduate degree in engineering, he
was working in a software company, and was quite clear about his
medium-term life goals. There was a wealth of opportunities for a
man of his skills in the United States, and he planned to get a job
there and migrate, like many of his friends had done. However,
destiny had something totally different in store for him.
Dr Suryanarayana had been out to collect rent on some paddy
fields he owned, and on his way back to Bhimavaram on his scooter,
it started raining heavily. He took shelter in the lobby of the
college building. It was late evening and the building was deserted,
except for Sri Raju and his secretary Mr Jagadish Varma. Sri Raju
saw Dr Suryanarayana in the lobby and invited him into his office.
During the conversation, he enquired about Dr Suryanarayana’s
qualifications, his job and his plans for the future. Sri Raju was
a man who made decisions quickly. He liked what he saw in the
young man and offered him the post of principal of the women’s
polytechnic. Dr Suryanarayana refused; he had made up his mind
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Sri Raju always believed in austerity. One summer, he even had the air
conditioner removed from his Bhimavaram office because he thought it
was a needless luxury.
to seek his fortune in America. He also did not know anything
about Sri Raju except what he had heard, that he was a retired
businessman who was setting up educational institutes.
The rain had stopped by now, and Dr Suryanarayana rose to
leave, after thanking Sri Raju for the offer. Sri Raju called in his
secretary Mr Varma and asked him to note down Dr Suryanarayana’s
phone number. Mr Varma asked for his office number, and
Sri Raju admonished him. “I am thinking of hiring him,” he said.
“Never ask such a man for his office number. Take his home number.”
A few days later, Dr Suryanarayana received a call for Mr
Varma—Sri Raju wanted to have lunch with him. By now, Dr
Suryanarayana had found out more about Sri Raju, and he was
intrigued enough to agree. Over lunch, Sri Raju explained his vision
to him, and that one hour changed Dr Suryanarayana’s life.
Sri Raju told him that Dr Suryanarayana could stay in the guest
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house, and any other requirements he had could be fulfilled. Dr
Suryanarayana was at that time undergoing a complex medical
treatment which needed him to take a day off periodically to visit
the clinic. Sri Raju said he had no problem with that. The only assurance
he needed was that Dr Suryanarayana would respect the
girl students under his care and never misbehave with them. If he
ever did, he would be dismissed immediately.
By the time the lunch was over, Dr Suryanarayana had junked
his American plan and was on board. He had been enthralled by
Sri Raju, the person and the visionary, and was willing to lay down
his life for him. He joined the polytechnic and a month later, was
made principal of the institute. “My daughter was born two years
later,” says Dr Suryanarayana. “I named her Vaishnavi. If it had
been a son, I would have named him Vishnu.” This was the sort of
loyalty Sri Raju inspired.
Obviously, he had very strong skills of persuasion. Professor
A.L. Kishore was the first teacher to join what is now BVRIT
Narsapur. The campus was still being built and the institute was
functioning out of Khusro Manzil, which used to be the residence
of Khusro Jung Bahadur, the Chief Commanding Officer of the
seventh Nizam of Hyderabad’s forces. “The conversation with B.V.
Raju Garu on the day of the interview was so profound and inspiring
that I preferred BVRIT to two central government jobs that I
already had—Company Commander (Deputy Superintendent of
Police) in the Border Security Force, and Central Intelligence officer
in the Government of India,” he says. “He told me that my
job is to educate and help students to achieve what motivates them
and nurture responsible global leaders.” Twenty three years later,
Professor Kishore does not regret the decision he took that day as
a young man even for a moment.
But some interviews were almost painfully rigorous. Professor
K. Srinivas, vice-principal of Vishnu Institute of Technology
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(VIT) says: “He interviewed me for three hours. The aim was to
check my commitment, and most importantly, whether I would be
cordial with the girl students. He said I must look at every girl as
if she were my own daughter.”
Mr Kosuri Murali, office assistant at Vishnu Dental College,
had a very tough time getting a job from Sri Raju. He visited Sri
Raju’s office every day for three months and waited for hours to
meet him. But whenever he requested him for a job, Sri Raju would
say that this was not a government organisation that was in the
business of employment, and there were no vacancies on the campus.
But, says Mr Murali, “though I pestered him for three months
continuously, he never showed any sign of irritation or anger”.
After two and half months, his persistence seemed to pay off. Sri
Raju asked his name and enquired about his family. But then there
was no communication for 10 days. “After 10 days, he again enquired
about my qualifications and appointed me as Stores Assistant,”
recalls Mr Murali. “He just said: You must perform all your
duties sincerely, because there is place for laxity here.”
Of course, the kindness he showed to the girl students extended
to women staffers also. Dr G. Sunitha, today Physical Education
Director of SVECW, was interviewed by Sri Raju for a position in
the polytechnic college in 2002. She was pregnant at the time. Sri
Raju hired her the same day, and asked her to join after she had
delivered her baby and was confident enough to come for full-time
work.
The road from Bhimavaram town to the campus was at that
time considered unsafe. After nightfall, people were scared of travelling
down that unlit stretch alone and preferred the safety of a
group. But these problems too have been solved. Sri Raju’s grandson
Mr Vishnu Raju, the current Chairman of SVES, has had the
road four-laned and road lights installed. The land adjoining the
road near the campus mostly housed slums, and 146 families have
116

Former Union Minister Sri Bangaru Dattatreya at the inauguration
ceremony of the B.V. Raju Institute of Technology.
now been relocated to patta houses. Thus, the entire environment
around the campus has changed. The road is now called B.V. Raju
Marg.
THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE
“He could make the impossible possible,” says Dr Basava Raju. To
illustrate, he recounts a particular incident when some professors
from the Horticulture department of a university were slated to
visit the campus. At that time, with construction still on in some
parts, there were hardly any flowers on the campus. Sri Raju and
his team worked through the night before the professors arrived.
A hundred and fifty trucks delivered soil, and by the time the horticulture
experts arrived, there were flowerbeds all around the
campus.
A few months after the campus temple was built and opened to
the public, an employee, the only Christian member of the staff,
came to Sri Raju and complained that his family had no nearby
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Sri Venkaiah Naidu, currently Vice-President of India, at the
inauguration ceremony of the B.V. Raju Institute of Technology.
place of worship. So a church was built, so that this one family
could have a place to pray in.
As had been the case throughout his working life, Sri Raju the
educationist invoked great respect but also fear. Recalls Dr Suryanarayana:
“When you went to him with a report that he wanted,
he would listen quietly, and then just say: ‘I see.’ Now that ‘I see’
could mean either of two things: that you had solved the problem
to his satisfaction, or that you had failed him and were now in big
trouble. In the next one or two days, it would become clear to you
exactly what the meaning of that ‘I see’ was.”
Right from the beginning, Sri Raju had been focused on academic
and pedagogic excellence in his institutes. And the metric
he used was simple: how the students fared in the examinations
conducted by the state university. He made it clear to the teachers
that they would be held responsible for this. On this parameter, no
teacher would be allowed grace marks. He would check the aca-
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demic performance of each student. He would show his appreciation
of a faculty member whose students turned in a 100 per cent
result in the subject he taught, by giving him a gold coin.
This worked in reverse too. When he found that students were
scoring less-than-satisfactory marks in a subject that the principal
of the polytechnic himself taught, Sri Raju immediately re-designated
him as Academic Advisor. The message was not lost on
anyone. After a month, the gentleman left on his own.
“When he asked for something to be done, or set a target, a reply
like ‘I will try’ was unacceptable to him,” says Dr Suryanarayana.
“You had to say ‘I will do it’. After that, if you gave your 200 per
cent and still couldn’t succeed, that he could take. But in that first
response of yours, he judged whether this person was committed
enough to his task or not.” And if he saw that commitment, Sri
Raju would always back him.
Dr E. Laxmi Narsaiah, Dean—Academic Affairs of BVRIT,
Narsapur, and one of the original teachers, recalls a particular
review meeting. “The agenda was result analysis. The Founder
Chairman always insisted for 100 per cent pass. He strongly believed
that if a student had completed intermediate successfully
should at least pass. During the meeting, one of the senior professors
said: ‘Sir, we can take the horse to the pond but we can’t make
the horse to drink the water.’ Immediately, Raju Garu replied: ‘If
you can’t make the horse to drink the water, you are not fit to be a
rider.’ That day I realised the meaning of owning the responsibility
for a task.”
CARING FOR ALL
Sri Raju was also very particular about the students’ health. After
all, they had been entrusted in his care by their parents. His
instructions to the teachers were clear: if a student was ill, they
must treat her like she was their own child. If a student fell sick,
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he used to visit her personally, speak to the doctors and make sure
she got timely and good care. Dr Suryanarayana recalls that when
a student came down with appendicitis, Sri Raju visited her in hospital
every day during her entire stay there, and would take fruits
to her.
Mr Ramakrishna Raju’s daughter P.D.N.U.V. Sirisha was in
the first batch of students in SVECW. She is now a software engineer
at a London-based firm. When Mr Raju, then principal of
DNR College, one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges in the
Godavari districts, was trying to make up his mind about which
engineering college to send his daughter to, he visited the Bhimvaram
campus. He met Sri Raju and immediately decided that his
daughter would be safe and well-looked-after here. He admitted
his daughter in an entirely new college with zero track record.
“Over the years, I have encouraged many people I know to send
their daughters here,” he says. “It is absolutely safe for women and
the teaching is excellent. Almost everyone I know who has studied
here is well-settled in her career.”
Recalls Mr P. Sreehari Raju, assistant professor at SVECW: “On
every student’s birthday, Sri Raju would call her to his home, bless
her and give her Rs 500 as a birthday gift.”
It was the same with staff members. Dr I.R.K. Raju, presently
principal of B.V. Raju College (BVRC) cites the example of an
employee named Janardhan Naidu who did not have any family
living with him at Bhimavaram. “He had had surgery and was
advised bed rest,” says Dr Raju. “He lived on top of a three-storied
building. But Dr Raju used to visit him every day, climbing up
three floors at the age of 82 to enquire about his health and make
sure he was fine.”
The story of Mr Nageswara Rao, who works as an attender at
BVRC, is a case study by itself. He had undergone heart bypass
surgery at a young age and had been told by his doctors not to take
120

At the gate of the Bhimavaram campus, with its statue of Mahatma
Gandhi, whose principle of trusteeship Sri Raju adhered to throughout
his life.
121

Sri Raju with his friend Mr P. Krishnaganga Raju, who assisted him
during the purchase of land for the Bhimavaram campus and in
constructing it.
up any job that involved hard physical labour. He approached Sri
Raju for any attender job that might be available, and explained
his medical condition. Sri Raju appointed him the very next day.
He would often enquire about his health and on many occasions,
gave Mr Rao money over and above his salary for regular health
check-ups. Both of Mr Rao’s children studied engineering at the
Bhimavaram campus. His daughter today works for IBM and his
son at Tech Mahindra.
Says Mr Padma Raju, lab technician of SBSP: “Dr Raju always
said to his employees that they should take care of the institutions
and he would take care of their welfare. In this way, he expected
his employees to be very sincere in their duties and he treated
them like they were all his family members.”
As is natural, after a few years, a few faculty members wanted
to quit. Dr D.J. Nagendra Kumar, today controller of examinations
at VIT, was one of them. He had got a seat for MTech, and
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wanted to pursue this. Sri Raju called him in and asked him if he
would come back to Bhimavaram to work for the same institute
after completing his MTech. Dr Nagendra Kumar said yes, in fact
he planned on spending his whole life here. Sri Raju laughed and
said: “I don’t want you to make such promises. If you come back
and work here for at least three years, that is enough. Will you do
that?”
For other staffers, whose sincerity and commitment he recognised,
Sri Raju would be willing to pay for their further education.
Mr Appa Rao joined in 2001. He wished to study library
science but could not afford to go to college. Sri Raju paid for his
library science course. Today, Mr Appa Rao is librarian of SVCP.
“He was not a man who showed too many emotions,” says Dr
Suryanarayana. “When he really liked something one of his people
had done, he would smile and put his hand on the man’s shoulder.
During my association with him, he possibly did it to me three
or four times, and there could be no greater happiness than that
for anyone. Even today, when I visit his last resting spot, I feel his
motivating hand on my shoulder.”
“He was a staunch Hindu,” says Mr Vishnu Raju. “He used to
do puja for one hour every morning and half an hour every evening.
But he had told us that after his death, he did want any of
the rituals and ceremonies. I don’t want you to do all those seventh-day
and thirteenth-day ceremonies, he told us. If you want to
do anything, feed the poor. So that’s what we did, and we do it still,
every year, on his death anniversary.”
Says Dr P. Srinivasa Raju, vice-principal, SVECW: “Everyone
on the campus wept when they came to know of his sudden demise.
Thousands participated in his last journey. We all feel and
believe that the success of every programme on the campus is due
to the blessings from his soul. He continues to look after us from
heaven.”
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Age was just a number for Sri Raju, who remained active till the
last day of his life, deeply involving in building and developing his
institutions.
Sri Raju had chosen to be buried instead of being cremated.
He had designed and built his mausoleum and left elaborate instructions.
For example, he wanted his body to be placed such that
his head was to the north and legs towards the south. This was
against Hindu custom, but Sri Raju did not want his feet to face
the campus temple.
Today, the verdant and bustling Bhimavaram campus, with students
hurrying to their classes with their backpacks, the basketball
games in the evening, the serene teachers’ colony, charms any
visitor. There is a keenness to learn in the air, and, paradoxically,
both energy and tranquility. One can hear laughter on the grounds
and also see the quiet concentration in the classrooms and lab-
124

oratories. The canteens have a cheerful buzz, and the library a
weighty but comfortable silence. There are boundaries, but within
those boundaries, there is an unusual freedom to seek, discover
and grow.
The memorial to Sri Raju is a peaceful and humbling place,
where one can see his chair and table, the bed he slept on, his favourite
books on the shelves. It is almost impossible to believe that
such a man, who earned so much wealth and gave away so much,
and positively impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people,
and continues to do so, could have lived in such simplicity. But
Sri Raju had been born in a simple home, and he had lived a simple
life. Ostentation had been anathema.
Visitors to one of London’s most majestic landmarks, the St
Paul’s Cathedral, can find an epitaph of its architect, the great Sir
Christopher Wren, set in a circle in the floor directly under the
dome. It is in Latin: “Si monumentum requiris circumspice,” which,
translated in English, is: “If you would seek my monument, look
around you.” And when the visitor looks around, he sees, not Sir
Christopher’s crypt, but the whole glorious structure that he created.
The same can certainly be said of the Bhimavaram campus
for Sri Raju.
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CHAPTER 6
The Legacy
SOMEONE once said that legacy is not leaving something for people;
it’s leaving something in people. Bhupatiraju Vissam Raju left
behind a legacy far greater than money or wealth. He left behind
one of character and values. That legacy touches every aspect of
the work that Sri Vishnu Educational Society (SVES) has been doing,
and in turn, every one of the thousands of students who study
in its excellent institutes, and its nearly 80,000 alumni who are today
spread out across the world.
When Sri Raju began his quest to set up something lasting
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An aerial view of the verdant Bhimavaram campus.
and unique in education, he had already had a sterling career as
private sector manager, public sector leader and successful entrepreneur.
He was also already in his 70s. “At that time, none of the
family members were interested in education,” recalls Mr Vishnu
Raju. “In fact, some of them were saying, why on earth is he investing
in education? He’s already quite old, who’s going to look after
all this when he’s gone?”
This was even reported in the local papers. On June 8, 2002,
when Sri Raju passed away, the Telugu papers were asking: What
happens now to the educational institutes he had spent his last
years building? Would the family give them over to a body like the
Ramakrishna Mission? Are the colleges going to collapse?
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HANDING OVER THE BATON
As he lay in hospital, and he could see the indications that he
might not make it, he called his family to his bedside, took his beloved
grandson Vishnu’s hand and told them: “He will carry on my
work; kindly support him. He knows what to do.”
“Frankly, I didn’t have a clue,” says Mr Vishnu Raju. “Being an
engineer, I knew a bit about engineering, but dentistry, pharmacy
etc, I had no clue.” He had been brought up by his grandfather
since the age of four, because his parents lived in Britain, and in
many ways, he had been the son Sri Raju had never had. Sri Raju
had been his parent, teacher, mentor, guide throughout his life.
Right from 1992, when the society was formed, from inspection of
land to getting permissions, he had worked with his grandfather
and been staunchly by his side all the time, yet he felt unsure.
And then, as he grieved the loss of the man he had loved and
respected the most in his life, a new resolve—almost an epiphany—struck
him. “I had this thought,” he says, “that we must not
128

Smruthi Vanam, a
memorial depicting the
timeline of Sri Raju in
the central park of the
Bhimavaram campus,
built to commemorate his
birth centenary.
let his dream die. We cannot allow these to be just some mediocre
institutions. So I got into it.”
In 2009, he asked his collegemate and close friend Mr Ravichandran
Rajagopal to join SVES as Vice-Chairman. Mr Ravichandran
had been the man who had helped Sri Raju find the hitherto-unknown
limestone deposits in Tamil Nadu for Raasi Cement. “Ravi
had known my grandfather very well, and he knew his value system,”
says Mr Raju. “And it was extremely important that SVES
followed that value system in everything it did. I needed someone
who shared that vision and Ravi was the perfect person.”
Today, the SVES educational institutes, taken together, are 50
times larger than when Sri Raju passed away. The society runs
three campuses—at Bhimavaram in Andhra Pradesh, and at Narsapur
and Hyderabad in Telangana, with a total of over 20,000 students
and 1,800 faculty members, both teaching and staff. The institutes
offer both undergraduate and post-graduate programmes
in engineering, polytechnic, pharmacy, dental sciences, arts and
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science, and management. SVES also runs two schools to cater to
the local requirements of both the staff and the neighbourhood
where the institutes are located.
SVES has received many awards, including what is considered
to be the nation’s highest award for quality education, the
IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award in 2011 and 2017,
equivalent to the Malcolm Baldrige Award of the US. It also won
the Global Performance Excellence Award as Best in Class Educational
Organization from the Asia Pacific Quality Organization
(APQO) in 2012 and 2018..
“Today it’s a huge enterprise with great academic record and a
great reputation, and we are very proud of the fact that because of
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The natural splendour
of the campus of BVRIT
Hyderabad College of
Engineering for Women.
these educational institutes, in almost all districts in Andhra and
Telangana, people still talk about B.V. Raju,” says Mr Raju. “Right
from Adilabad to Srikakulam, there is someone who’s studying in
our colleges or has studied here. And they are all over the world.”
“I go to Pittsburgh every year because I have family there,
and the city has the biggest Venkateshwara temple in the United
States, so is visited by a lot of Telugu people,” he says. “And almost
every year, someone comes up to me and says: Sir, I studied at Bhimavaram.
Or Narsapur. That is a far greater legacy than someone
who was merely an industrialist could have left behind. And when
I meet these people, I understand what a grand and far-reaching
vision my grandfather had.”
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Life is not just studies, but a lot of fun too on the SVES campuses.
HANDLING COVID-19
Perhaps nothing epitomises the value system that SVES has inherited
from its founder than the way it has responded to the Covid-19
calamity that struck the world in Sri Raju’s centenary year.
Among the sectors hardest-hit by the pandemic are private educational
institutions. Tuition fees are not coming in, the money
that governments owe the institutions are nowhere in sight. Many
top colleges are not paying their faculty full salary. Some are also
sending their faculty on furlough or just firing them. But SVES is
fulfilling all its commitments. “Because we know that if we do anything
wrong here, it’s B.V. Raju’s reputation that will be soiled,”
says Mr Raju.
SVES is fighting the war using both technology and an unfailing
and unique human touch. And technology-wise, the SVES colleges
were perhaps far readier for the crisis than any other Indian
private institution.
One of SVES’ key differentiators from other educational institutes
is VEDIC, the Vishnu Educational Development and Innova-
132

Mr Vishnu Raju flagging off a go-karting race at SVECW,
Bhimavaram.
tion Centre, set up in April 2016. VEDIC is a unique initiative to
improve the teaching and learning standards of the faculty and
student communities. Every faculty member needs to attend at
least one programme every academic year and the follow-up is
monitored at the institutional level.
Much before the pandemic brought the necessity of online
teaching to the forefront, VEDIC had set up a recording studio in
November 2017, to assist faculty in video content creation. Faculty
members were trained and dozens of videos were created. Much
before the world was forced to wake up to video-conferencing tools
like Zoom, in December 2018, the CONNECT programme was initiated
to bring the various educators within SVES on a common
platform to collaborate with one another on content development
in common subjects. Hundreds of Zoom sessions involving the faculty
from the four engineering institutes had already been held
before the pandemic struck and India went into lockdown. As a
result, most of the faculty had become experts in using Zoom and
video recording before the pandemic.
133

The Dr A.P.J. Abdul
Kalam academic block
at the BVRIT Narsapur
campus.
Between April 2016 and end-March 2020, when Prime Minister
Narendra Modi announced the lockdown, a total of 50 faculty development
workshops related to instructional technology, involving
around 1,300 teachers, had been held. Faculty were already
being taught and encouraged to use technology tools such as Ed-
Puzzle and Kahoot, Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as
Google Classroom, Edmodo and Moodle.
Thus, when the lockdown came, SVES, because of its leaders’
foresight, was uniquely well-prepared. During March to May 2020,
faculty deployed several tools to be used in the online classes held
during the pandemic. With a view to sharing best practices during
the pandemic, a 12-session online colloquium involving more than
1,400 faculty members was held between June 2 to July 22, 2020.
These sessions helped faculty support one another through shar-
134

ing of techniques and tools for online classes.
The results from a July 2020 internal faculty survey of a sample
of 486 SVES faculty indicated that 71 per cent of them use
either Google Classroom, Edmodo, Moodle or MS Teams, while
about 93 per cent of the SVES engineering faculty reported using
these tools.
Consequently, as classrooms and hostels were shut down, SVES
could move to online classes extremely swiftly.
The covid crisis also ensured that the important summer
months for the third (pre-final) years were lost and it impacted the
students in multiple ways including non-availability of summer
internships, smaller number of summer projects and absence of
live (physical) training sessions. These aspects were addressed
with proactive utilization of solutions from global players such as
135

Sri Raju remains a living presence on the campuses and in the
educational institutes he set up.
Coursera and edX as well as technology platforms such as ConduiraOnline
and Cocubes.
Both faculty and students took certification courses offered by
Coursera in several areas such as artificial intelligence, the big
data analytics language Python, as well as communication skills
and so on. Conduira provided training in problem solving, communication,
interpersonal and programming skills with benchmarking
provided to the students during and after the training. A
detailed assessment report was given by Cocubes for 2,354 pre-final
year students from the four engineering institutes, which helped
students benchmark themselves and improve their skills in identified
gaps.
This is the spirit of technological innovation and speedy implementation
that Sri Raju had embodied in his career, whether
in buying future-ready machines for his manufacturing plants, or
getting his Raasi Cement factories up and running in record time.
But equally crucial was the empathy and human touch that his
life epitomised. For the pandemic has not only spread the threat
136

The museum on the Bhimavaram campus dedicated to Sri Raju’s life.
of disease and death, it has also caused severe uncertainty in all
spheres of life, deep anxiety and potentially serious mental health
issues.
The SVES leadership recognised that the lack of peer interactions
in a classroom environment and being locked up at home did
not allow for proper socio-emotional development of the students.
Therefore, the VEDIC team of behaviour specialists developed a
“self-management skills” programme for all SVES students within
a few weeks to create an avenue for students to share their real
lockdown experiences and motivate one another from these interactions.
The first online session for students was conducted on April 14,
2020, 20 days after the national lockdown was announced. The sessions—two
and half hours, with 60 students in each batch—have
continued through the crisis. The sessions start with a message
from the leadership team, followed by an interactive game, videos
and discussions and have a post-session “vision board” activity for
them to complete. Students opened up slowly, and towards the end,
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most of them did not want to leave the programme and stayed on
and talked to the mentors. Parents and siblings also participated
in some of the sessions and said they felt motivated.
Mr Raju and Mr Ravichandran participate in these sessions
every day, reassuring students that SVES will not let them down,
listening to their worries and problems, and answering their queries.
When it was found that online classes were very difficult for
some students to access since they come from impoverished families
and cannot afford a mobile phone or a tablet, SVES bought the
devices for them. “It’s simple, really,” says Mr Vishnu Raju. “We
are doing this because we know that this is something my grandfather
would have done.”
It is in times of crisis that true leadership and humanity are
tested and revealed. SVES is a case study of this.
138

The amphitheatre on the
Bhimavaram campus,
which is a “students’
space” for cultural
activities and relaxation.
FACTSHEET 2020
Sri Raju’s vision permeates SVES in many ways, big and small,
and in some unexpected ways. But first, a brief factsheet of SVES
in 2020, the founder-chairman’s centenary year.
The current SVES universe is as follows:
B.V. Raju Institute of Technology (BVRIT) Narsapur:
Established in 1997, what makes BVRIT Narsapur special are its
interdisciplinary programmes in Biomedical Engineering and
Pharmaceutical Engineering, apart from conventional courses
like Computer Science, Information Technology, Electronic, Electrical,
Civil, Mechanical and Chemical Engineering. BVRIT is
among the top 10 Institutes in the state of Telangana. It achieved
1000+ placements for the batch of 2019, and 900+ placements for
the batch of 2020.
BVRIT Hyderabad College of Engineering for Women
139

The Computer Centre at
the Sri Vishnu College of
Engineering for Women,
established in 2001 as the
largest higher education
institute in the state for
women.
(BVRIT H) Hyderabad: This is the youngest amongst the SVES
colleges. Founded in 2012, the college offers computer science,
and electronic and electrical engineering courses at the undergraduate
level. Women in Software Engineering (WISE) is a
unique programme which trains students on the latest tools/
skills required for the industry. Students are also mentored by
leading industry professionals from Microsoft, Amazon, Qualcomm
etc. Like all SVES colleges, BVRIT Hyderabad’s placement
record is excellent, right from the first batch (2016) with 233 placements
to 450+ placements of the 2020 batch.
In 2016, a BVRIT student Ms. Nori Meher Rishika stood first
in the India Skills Competition in the category “IT Software Solutions
for Business” conducted by Skill India, Ministry of Skill
Development and Entrepreneurship, and went on to represent
India in the World Skills competition in Abu Dhabi.
Vishnu Institute of Technology (VIT): VIT Bhimavaram is a
140

co-educational college which enjoys the reputation of being the
preferred college in the region. Students are encouraged to learn
through online programmes using Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOC), interactive videos, forums, assessments etc. There is a
lot of emphasis given to internships to shape students’ competencies.
Rigorous placement training is offered to students with
special focus on those from a rural background.
Shri Vishnu Engineering College for Women (SVECW):
SVECW Bhimavaram is the first-choice women’s engineering
college in Andhra Pradesh and the largest residential facility for
women in the state. At SVECW, students acquire confidence and
strong life skills, given the myriad opportunities the school offers
to build their individuality and their own identity. SVECW is
proactive in organizing national level automobile events such as
go-karting and e-moto championships, and solar vehicle competitions
(more about this later). SVECW always attains record
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Mr Vishnu Raju inspecting the design of an all-terrain vehicle built by
students.
placements with its each graduating batch.
In addition to the BTech and MTech programmes, BVRIT Narsapur,
VIT and SVECW also offer MBA courses.
Vishnu Dental College (VDC) Bhimavaram: The institute
maintains an impressive amalgamation of scientific enquiry and
comprehensive dental care services. VDC prides itself in ensuring
all its students have an Apple iPad and classes are designed
with 30 students in each section. The pedagogy and course
content are uniquely designed to draw the interest of the student
into diving deep into their clinical specialisations.
With a mission to provide affordable and accessible quality dental
care to rural Andhra, VDC has established 25+ Satellite Dental
Clinics connected to its Vishnu Dental Hospital, with an ambition
to set up 100+ such clinics across the state (more about this
initiative later).
Shri Vishnu College of Pharmacy (SVCP) Bhimavaram: The
college offers some of the most advanced facilities in pharma-
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All-terrain vehicles designed by SVECW students often win awards at
prestigious contests.
ceutical education (B.Pharm, M.Pharm and Pharm.D), which
enables students to simulate real-life clinical situations and
demonstrate competence in the full range of skills required by
modern pharmacists. Emphasis is laid on experimental learning,
development of communication skills, counselling and in prescribing
skills to cope with the expanding role of the pharmacist
in modern society.
Vishnu Insitute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research
(VIPER) Narasapur: Established in 2007, the institute offers
courses in B.Pharm and M.Pharm. VIPER has well-equipped
laboratories catering to the various disciplines like Pharmaceutics,
Pharmacology, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmacognosy,
Pharmaceutical Analysis and Biotechnology. VIPER is the only
pharmaceutical education institute in Telangana with a stateof-the-art
Centre For Molecular And Cancer Research, cognitive
science laboratories and nutraceutical manufacturing facilities.
Smt. B Seetha Polytechnic (SBSP) Bhimavaram: Established
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in 1997, this was the first educational institution founded by Sri
Raju. With the aim to impart quality technical education to rural
students, this college provides customized industrial training
through well-equipped laboratories, library with its rich collection
of books and a qualified team of faculty. It offers diploma
courses in the fields of computer engineering, electrical, communications
and electronics engineering.
B.V. Raju College (BVRC) Bhimavaram: BVRC strives to
impart cost-effective education to every rural student in and
around Bhimavaram. The college offers six multi-disciplinary
undergraduate courses, four in the stream of Mathematical Sciences
and two in Life Sciences, and postgraduate programmes in
Organic Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry and Computer Applications.
Vishnu School (VS) Bhimavaram: The school made a humble
beginning in 2003 with a small band of 80 students on its rolls and
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One of the clinics at
Vishnu Dental College
(VDC), Bhimavaram.
VDC also runs more than
25 satellite dental clinics
in five districts, more than
any other dental college in
the country.
14 teaching staff. The able functioning of the school, its infrastructure,
the reputation of SVES and proven guidance of the
management, has caused the school to grow in leaps and bounds.
Vishnu High School (VHS) Narsapur: Starting with 180
students in 2003, VHS now has 750 pupils. It boasts of excellent
infrastructure, with spacious classrooms, well-stocked library,
well-equipped labs, full-fledged computer lab and excellent sports
facilities. The school is the pride of the local community and also
caters to the children of faculty residing in the campus.
Enhancing student employability and life skills has always
figured high on SVES’ agenda. For employability in areas of
technologies that may shape our future, SVES signed up to promote
Emerging Technology Skilling through the NASSCOM FutureSkills
Initiative and onboarded 1,900 students and 100 faculty
members to be skilled in Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, cyber
security, the Internet of Things, blockchain, 3D printing and so on.
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The Vishnu School of Music aims to make Indian music easy,
accessible, and exciting to students.
Meanwhile, about 180 development programmes, involving
more than 9,000 students, have been held at VEDIC since 2016,
aimed at the holistic development of students. The themes were
adjusting to college culture (for first year students), self-development,
career and placement preparation (for second and third
years).
SVES established the first successful incubation centre among
all private colleges in the undivided state of Andhra Pradesh.
Among the companies incubated are Notion Ink, which designed
the first tablet PC on the Android platform; Dhama Innovation,
world pioneer in temperature-based wearable electronics, which
has patented its product in the US; and Jugular Social Media in the
digital marketing space.
In addition, the SVES campuses boast of several Centres of
Excellence like the Robotic Centre, the VLSI Design Lab, Drone
Centre of Excellence, Vehicle Technology Lab, Cyient Incubation
Centre, and the Anjani Powder Research Centre for powder characterisation
in the cement and pharma industries.
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Radio Vishnu’s student volunteers broadcast entertainment
programmes as well as address vital social issues.
Today, the SVES institutes boasts of nearly 80,000 alumni
around the world. And their success is only growing. Companies
that hired students from these colleges in 2020 include Fortune 500
companies from Amazon to American Express, Honda to Hyundai,
and some of the bluest-chip Indian companies, from Mahindra &
Mahindra to Infosys, TCS to Larsen & Toubro.
These are the facts and numbers. But they are only a partial
indication of how the SVES institutes are significantly different
in their philosophy, nature and quality of education.
For, the institutes are devoted not only to producing excellent
engineers, dentists and pharmacists, but well-rounded multi-faceted
responsible citizens.
BUILDING CHARACTER
How do you create a responsible citizen—indeed, build character?
But this question is central to SVES’ education philosophy. After
all, its founder-chairman manufactured cement, but, throughout
his career, he also built character. His value system influenced
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The gymnasium on the
Bhimavaram campus
provides all-round
physical development
facilities for the students.
hundreds of people his life touched, and they passed that forward
to their subordinates and children. “When he set up SVES,” says
Mr Vishnu Raju, “he wanted to provide quality education, but he
had a very holistic view of what education means. He wanted to
build good honest caring citizens.”
Recalls Professor A.L. Kishore of BVRIT Narsapur, the first
teacher to join the academy, even before the campus had been
built: “One of my best experiences with our Founder Chairman
was on the day when I travelled with him from Hyderabad to Narsapur.
It was a one-hour drive, and all through the journey he was
explaining the purpose of establishing the college at Narsapur.
What inspired me is the way he articulated his vision for the college.
And it’s very simple to understand. He told me that we should
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build an ecosystem which should become every bright student’s
destination. We should focus only on those things that would help
create remarkable future leaders with a strong ethical and moral
background. The best part of the conversation is that he didn’t use
the word ‘I’. Almost all the sentences started with ‘we’. He told me
that age is just a number. If you truly believe in yourself and have
clarity of purpose, anything can be achieved at any point of time.
Also, what amazed me is that at the age of 77, he had the plans for
the next 10 years to establish BVRIT into an institution of national
repute. By the time we reached Narsapur, what I saw was not the
college, I saw my destiny.” Thus did Sri Raju transform minds who
would for ever follow his principles.
SVES bases all its work on three core values:
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• An understanding that the students need to be specially
nurtured and prepared through personalized attention to
their needs.
• All members of the society are like members of the same
family and a genuine concern for the welfare of all the
stakeholders and most importantly, the faculty.
• A need to expand the benefits of SVES to the larger needs
of the community in a natural manner.
In Indian middle-class families, children are often under great
parental pressure to become engineers or doctors, whereas their
hearts may lie elsewhere. And ever since the information technology
technology boom began in the 1990s, there is an added bit of
pressure: Thou must become a software engineer. The result has
been the springing up of literally hundreds of private computer
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Inside the BVRIT
Narsapur campus.
engineering colleges, many of which are fly-by-night operations
that charge hefty fees, teach very little and cause lifelong trauma
to both the parents and their children. SVES, however, is almost
unique in this regard, because it sees its role in providing education
very differently.
“When we talk to students in their first year, a lot of them say
we won’t want to do computer engineering,” says Mr Raju. “At
least 30-40 per cent. Some of them want to be mechanical engineers,
some of them doctors, some of them architects, some fashion
designers. So how do we motivate them? Because, let’s face it,
in India, they are all dependent on their parents, so they have to
please them also.”
Consequently, SVES allows students to take a number of elective
courses in subjects that they are interested in. For instance,
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All work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy.
The indoor sports complex
at the Bhimavaram
campus allows students to
play a number of games.
for engineering students who had wanted to be doctors, there are
some biomedical and pharmaceutical engineering courses that
they can take. Even for those who wanted to be fashion designers,
there is an option. “We have a small technology park on the Bhimavaram
campus, where you can work with handlooms,” says Mr
Raju. “So students who are interested in fashion technology, want
to do embroidery, design clothes etc—they can go and develop their
skills there. We have even imported a couple of Swedish stitching
machines recently. And the internet is open for all of you. Use that
for creativity. Make a fabric. Do something you love to do. So you
satisfy your own interests and also be good Indian children, that is,
satisfy your parents.”
In our country, we have long followed an education system that
focuses on rote learning and employability. There is often little
space for a young man or woman to discover themselves and follow
their loves and passions. After all, the grade one gets in an
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examination and a job offer from a Fortune 500 company are easily
quantifiable parameters. But do these achievements really or completely
prepare a young Indian for life, to contribute to a greater
cause than an employer’s profit line? Indeed, when they are hiring,
are the best companies also just looking for young men and women
who only know their own subjects and do not have a bigger picture
of the world?
A WELL-ROUNDED EDUCATION
It is quite remarkable how the SVES institutes are dedicated to
produce a well-rounded person, with both awareness of and commitment
to larger social, national and human objectives. Faculty
members do not only teach their subject, but are also involved in
individual counselling of students to mould them into all-round
personalities. The delivery system is designed in such a way that
even an average student gains an edge over others in one or more
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aspects. The SVES institutes aim at complete personality development
of the students, imbued with human values and social commitment.
The National Education Policy adopted by the government of
India in July 2020 strongly recommends making some liberal and
creative arts courses an integral part of science and engineering
education. SVES has always paid attention to this aspect of education.
“We have been doing this for years, even though we didn’t
have the freedom,” says Mr Raju.
The Vishnu School of Music on the Bhimavaram campus aims
to make learning of all styles of Indian music easy, accessible, and
exciting to students. Its philosophy is simple—impart high-quality
learning of music through innovative methods, while having a
great deal of fun. Courses are offered for both new learners and
those who are already adept. The faculty takes the vast treasure
house of Indian classical music and demystifies it. The school defines
milestones and when a student enrolls for a course, communicates
to her what she can accomplish on successful completion
of the course.
The school aims to restore the balance between STEM education
and knowledge of the arts. Indeed, it empowers students to
pursue their passions and make alternate careers out of them.
There are 330 students currently enrolled in the music school. And
they could be studying civil engineering or pharmacy science in
their classrooms.
There are more than 30 students clubs in SVECW for extra-curricular
activities. Whatever their extra-curricular interests, students
can pursue them. This is one of the best features of SVES
education, where students are never restricted from following
their heart, and life outside the classroom remains vibrant. Few
institutes in India provide such facilities and actively encourage
the young men and women to make of themselves what they want.
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Assistive Technology Lab set up by Professor Alan Rux, University of
Massachusetts, Lowell, USA at BVRIT in 2009.
“All this requires investments,” says Mr Vishnu Raju. “But
we want our students to be happy. When the government inspectors
come, they come with their forms and ask, how many computers,
what’s the built-up area, the teacher-student ratio, and so
on. They’re not bothered about whether the student is happy or
not. So we don’t get any extra marks for doing all this. And very
few private engineering colleges bother, but we do. We care for our
students. And that’s how we also differentiate ourselves from the
others.”
When Sri Raju was alive and running SVES, every year he
would ask for a list of all the students and their birthdays. And
on the student’s birthday, he would call her to his home, bless her
and give her Rs 500 as a gift. “Thus, he knew every student and every
student had a bond with him,” says Mr Raju. “Of course, with
20,000 students, it’s no longer possible for us to know each one of
them, or form that sort of bond. But that idea, that every student is
special, and must have a happy life on the campus—it comes from
my grandfather’s values.”
155

Chairman Mr K.V. Vishnu Raju
(extreme right) with (from left
to right) Mr Ravichandran
Rajagopal, Vice-Chairman,
SVES; former Director Dr
Srinivasan Sundararajan;
present Director Dr Mini Shaji
Thomas of NIT, Trichy.
THE BIRDS AND THE BULLET TRAIN
Next to the main guest house in the Bhimavaram campus is a big
billboard with the pictures of some two dozen birds. A visitor may
wonder what birds are doing on an engineering-dentistry-pharmacy
campus. But therein lies one of those stories that makes SVES
unique.
Some years ago, Mr Raju and his wife had gone for a holiday
to a resort in Goa. While there, Mr Raju noticed a billboard near
the villa where they were staying which had pictures of birds with
their local and Latin names under them, with the line: “These are
the feathered friends who come and nest here.” Back at Bhimavaram,
he told the students about this, and said that many types of
birds visit their campus because of its several waterbodies, so why
don’t you list them out? The students got excited and starting looking
for them and taking photos. Over time, they discovered that
about 25 different birds visit or live on the campus.
But these young amateur ornithologists did not know the
names of most of these creatures. So they contacted zoology pro-
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fessors in leading colleges with the pictures. The result was the
billboard and finally a book with the names and details of every
bird, including when they come, and where they spend their time.
This was a totally fun project that the students had taken on willingly
and produced something lasting.
But the story does not end here. Mr Raju then showed the students
a film on how his bird-watching hobby had helped Japanese
engineer Eiji Nakatsu solve a huge problem with Japan’s “bullet
train”. While originally heralded as a design masterpiece, the
Shinkansen train was soon found to have a massive design flaw.
Reaching speeds of over 320 km per hour, every time the train
would blast out of a tunnel, it did so with a deafening bang that
infuriated nearby residents at all hours of day and night.
Consequently, Japan enforced an acceptable limit of 70 decibels
to prevent further noise pollution. The problem for the bullet
train’s engineers was how to reduce the noise, without compromising
on the speed. And then Nakatsu the bird-watcher thought of
the kingfisher. The kingfisher dives nose first into water to catch
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Chairman Mr Vishnu Raju addressing students.
fish and barely makes a splash. So Nakatsu gave his train a 50-foot
steel “beak” which solved the noise-pollution problem, and also
made the Shinkansen train between 10–15 per cent more efficient.
Later, Nakatsu redesigned the train’s pantograph—the link to
power source cables running above the carriages—which was the
part that made the most noise, to reflect the shape of the wings of
the owl, which swoops silently down on its prey. He additionally
recreated the noise-dampening qualities of an owl’s feather, with
an array of serrations on the pantograph’s “wing” which broke up
the rushing air turbulence.
“In design this is referred to as biomimicry,” says Mr Raju.
“You’re looking to the natural world for engineering solutions. I’m
sure you can get such ideas from the world of music, the arts, and
so on. So I think that the facilities we are providing our students
could actually make them better engineers. Nothing goes waste.”
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CREATING GOOD CITIZENS
Then there is the social responsibility aspect—instilling in the
students the knowledge that they are part of a larger community,
many of whom may be far more deprived than they are. But why
should even that work not be enjoyable?
The Bhimavaram campus’ community radio station Vishnu
FM 90.4 is the first campus community radio station in Andhra
Pradesh, established in 2007. Enabling interaction between community
and academia, it enhances inter/intrapersonal skills
of the students and instils social responsibility. Students develop
most of the radio programmes on relevant social issues, and
broadcast them, becoming anchors and radio jockeys in their after-college
hours.
This community radio’s signal covers nearly 45 villages including
Bhimavaram town. And today, people from across the world
can listen in through Android and iOS apps, or the Radio Vishnu
web portal.
The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting awarded
Vishnu FM the National Community Radio Award 2014 in the
category “Community Engagement Awards” for the programme
“Vijayapadham”, which is broadcast everyday. The programme
covers the success stories of Development of Women and Children
in Rural Areas (DWCRA) groups. Through its programmes, Radio
Vishnu aims to create awareness among the local and surrounding
public on issues such as women empowerment, importance of
adult education, health and hygiene etc.
The change that Radio Vishnu has brought about is visible.
Hygiene in the villages has improved. Superstitions about eating
habits have decreased. Women have learnt different cooking methods
to retain nutrients. Now most of the women are well versed
in the nutritive values of food items. Mothers have got a voice by
speaking on Radio Vishnu. This has increased socialization and
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sharing of information.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Radio Vishnu produced many
programmes to bring awareness within the community, and recorded
and distributed different types of audios to government
health departments. It also participated in the prestigious UNICEF
project Mission Corona.
And in the evening every day, for one hour, Radio Vishnu also
becomes an entertainment channel, with students playing songs
and taking phone-ins. They become quintessential radio jockeys;
some of them even achieve fame in the listening community. Says
a fourth-year engineering student who radio-jockeys under the
pseudonym Shanti: “People call in and chat with me on various
things. Of course, they don’t know my real name; I’m just this girl
Shanti to them, but they wait for me to come on air. It’s great fun.”
An initiative which is very close to Mr Raju’s heart is the Assistive
Technology Lab (ATL) on the Bhimavaram and Narsapur campuses,
developed with the technical support of University of Massachusetts,
Lowell, USA. ATL designs and manufactures assistive
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Today, SVES graduates are
spread across the globe, working
in some of the finest companies in
the world. Mr Vishnu Raju with
alumni in New Jersey, US.
aids for the differently abled. Students interact with people having
various physical disabilities and develop devices for assisting
them in their normal functioning. This teaches them to be aware
of their obligations as an engineer to the community and helps
them develop their design thinking capacity for building solutions
and applying their engineering principles. This is a small but significant
step to mainstream people with disabilities into society.
Some of the products developed by the students are e-stick for
the blind, hand gripper for artificial limbs, technologies enabling
livelihoods of the deaf and mute, games for autistic children. The
gadgets/ solutions developed by the students at ATL are distributed
free every year on 3 December, World Disability Day. ATL encourages
students to innovate to solve real problems faced by real
people in the real world.
An amazing tale where SVES’ social responsibility paid off
great dividends academically is that of the Vishnu Dental Community
Outreach programme run by Vishnu Dental College (VDC).
Under Dental Council of India rules, a dental college has to fulfil
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a community dentistry requirement, which entails running an
outreach programme in rural India. Most colleges treat this as a
formality to be complied with, and posts a few students at a dental
clinic at a nearby village for some time. The inspector comes, ticks
the community dentistry box, and usually that is the end of the
matter.
“But we saw an opportunity there,” says Mr Raju. “We found
that a lot of villages in the Godavari districts had no dentists. So
we set up clinics and posted students there—students who wanted
a job right away after their bachelor’s degree, or stand on their
own feet for say two years before they do their master’s. Multiple
objectives are served here. You are working in the real world,
where patients may be finicky, there are power cuts, you have broken
chairs. Well, you have to deal with those problems and fix them
on your own. Plus you get tremendous practical experience. You
are no longer in the world of theoretical knowledge. And you develop
the quality of empathy when you are dealing with real poor
people.”
This is one of the reasons why many of the top rankers in the
NEET MDS exams, the entrance test for master’s in dentistry, select
VDC as their preferred destination. The past three years’ statistics
point to this. No seat goes vacant either for the undergraduate
or the postgraduate courses. This is another indication of VDC
being the top preferred college in the region. Students know that
if they come here, they will get a complete education. This is no
mean feat, since VDC is not located in a big city.
Today VDC runs 25+ satellite dental clinics in five districts,
more than any other dental college in the country. And villagers
are so grateful that VDC does not even have to pay rent for 18 of
these premises, because the owners have given their vacant houses
to VDC for free.
This year, VDC students did extremely well in the NEET MDS
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Prof Mohammed of SUNY, Binghamton University, at VEDIC.
exams, and got admission in the best post-graduate dental colleges
in the country. Indeed, the all-India second-ranker was from
VDC—Ms Meleti Venkata Sowmya. And one of the key reasons
she attributes her success to is her work for one year in a village
called Alampuram in West Godavari district. Interestingly, the
NEET MDS test pattern had changed this year—there was more
emphasis on practical knowledge than theory. She is now doing
her master’s at King George’s Medical College, Lucknow, a premier
college in the country for post-graduate programmes, in oral
maxillofacial surgery.
Another student, Ms Ayyagary Manaswini, who also did very
well in NEET MDS and is now pursuing her post-graduation at
Krishnadevaraya Dental College, Bengaluru, worked in a village
called Muramalla in East Godavari district. She made an emotional
phone call to Mr Raju, expressing her gratitude, saying that her
rural patients still called her to thank her for the work she had
done with them. This is a wonderful win-win situation for everyone
concerned.
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Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam visited
Bhimavaram campus in 2006 and
Narsapur campus in 2007 during
his tenure as President of India.
WHEELS AND CODE
Sri Raju’s original vision had women’s education and empowerment
at its core. SVES has not veered from that goal, and perhaps
nothing is a better example of its success than the annual BAJA
SAE automobile design competition where the girl students of the
Bhimavaram campus consistently do well and win awards. The
BAJA SAE tasks undergraduate students to design, fabricate and
validate a single-seater four-wheeled off-road vehicle to take part
in a series of events spread over a course of three days that test the
vehicle for the sound engineering practices that have gone into it,
the agility of the vehicle in terms of gradability, speed, acceleration
and manoeuvrability characteristics and finally its ability to
endure a back-breaking durability test.
SVES has created an active ecosystem to encourage the girls
to design and build the vehicles right from drawing board stage
and race them in BAJA SAE. Students are trained using advanced
computer-aided design and manufacturing softwares like Edge-
Cam, Fusion360 and Catia. The Vehicle Technology Lab enables
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students to fabricate go-karts, solar-powered vehicles, all-terrain
vehicles and e-bikes. Every year, top automobile industry executives
are amazed to see an all-woman team participating and winning
awards. This has also resulted in many woman engineers
from SVES breaking into a seemingly all-male bastion and getting
jobs with automobile giants like John Deere, Mahindra & Mahindra,
Honda, Ashok Leyland, Caterpillar, Hyundai and Renault Nissan.
Sri Raju would surely have been very proud.
WISE (Women in Software Engineering) is a unique programme
instituted in both the women’s engineering campuses of
SVES. The theme behind this programme is to instil a programming
mindset early on in the student. WISE imparts sound technological
skills and ensures that students get equipped for jobs in
IT product companies by the end of their academic programme.
WISE has helped students earn mentorship and internship opportunities
with industry giants like Microsoft and Amazon, and also
helped many students get placed with product companies with lucrative
packages.
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Sri Raju with a young Mr Vishnu Raju. The years have gone by, but the
legacy lives on.
AN EVERLASTING LEGACY
This book has been written as people and institutions across the
planet grapple with an unprecedented situation—a highly contagious
virus that not only kills, but is also reshaping lifestyles,
living choices and the very way we conduct our daily lives. In the
coming years, the history of the 21st century will possibly be demarcated
into two eras—pre-covid and post-covid. The world is
staring at an uncertain economic future. Insecurity and fear lurk
around every corner. Life as we have known it has been disrupted,
and will perhaps be changed for ever in small or large ways. Perhaps,
the world will have to be rebuilt to some extent, and it will be
up to the young to decide what shape they want to give that future.
In the final analysis, any educational institute exists to create
the future. And it is that institute’s vision, for its students, its faculty,
its responsibilities and responsiveness, that defines how it
goes about doing that. Sri Vishnu Educational Society was set up
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by a man who believed both in the human ability to forge a better
world, and humility in the face of forces greater than the human
mind can fully comprehend. It is this dual quality that has guided
SVES and continues to guide it under Mr Vishnu Raju’s leadership.
The boy who was brought up by his grandfather imbibed his
values. This has led to an extraordinary commitment to excellence,
the community and the world at large. “Today, 18 years later,
when I look back, I see it as an opportunity that came to me, that I
could run these institutions at a young age,” says Mr Raju. “I was
only 38 when he passed away. People generally do all this at a later
stage in life. Some people thought it was a burden for me, but I see
it as a God-given opportunity. To be able to carry my grandfather’s
dream and his vision forward.” The legacy lives on, vibrant and
always evolving, and adapting—even foreseeing—new realities.
Sri Raju’s life stood for steadfastness, compassion, discipline,
integrity, courage and a strong belief in the goodness of man. Barriers
existed to be surmounted, challenges appeared only to be
taken up. His exceptional life and career brooked no compromise,
yet were steeped in kindness and a belief that it is every human
being’s duty to help the less fortunate.
This is the legacy he has left behind, and it has endured. It is
a living legacy. It is visible in every face on the SVES campuses.
It stays alive in the heart of every person whose life he touched,
however indirectly, and even if they know about him through
their elders. Because the values that Sri Raju lived and worked for
are truly eternal. Our world has gone through transformational
changes since he passed on, and these changes will only get quicker
and more unexpected. But, even in such a world, with so many
unknown variables, some principles and some ideals remain constant.
And Padma Bhushan Dr Bhupatiraju Vissam Raju’s life will
remain a beacon for many generations to come.
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Yad yad acarati sresthas, tat tad evetaro janah
Sa yat pramanam kurute, lokas tad anuvartate
Whatever action is performed by a great man,
common men follow in his footsteps.
And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts,
all the world pursues.
— Bhagavad Gita, 3.21