Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata (Also spelled as Jamshedji) (3 March 1839 – 1904): Jamsetji Tata was an Indian pioneer industrialist, who founded the Tata Group, India’s biggest conglomerate company. He was born to a Parsi Zoroastrian family in Navsari then part of the princely state of Baroda.

He founded what would later become the Tata Group of companies. Tata is regarded as the legendary “Father of Indian Industry”. He had four goals in life: setting up an iron and steel company, a world-class learning institution, a unique hotel and a hydro-electric plant. Only the hotel became a reality during his lifetime, with the inauguration of the Taj Mahal Hotel at Colaba waterfront in Mumbai on 3 December 1903 at the cost of ₹11 million (worth ₹11 billion in 2015 prices). At that time it was the only hotel in India to have electricity.

His successors’ work led to the three remaining ideas being achieved:

Tata Steel (formerly TISCO – Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited) is Asia’s first and India’s largest steel company.
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, the pre-eminent Indian institution for research and education in Science and Engineering.

Tata Hydroelectric Power Supply Company, renamed Tata Power Company Limited, currently India’s largest private electricity company with an installed generation.

Tata’s iron and steel plant was set up at Sakchi village in Jharkhand. The village grew into a town and the railway station there was named Tatanagar. Now it is a bustling metropolis known as Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, named in honour of him.