Chairman of an industrial empire that is based on coal trading, 79 year old Savita Parmar is a force to reckon when it comes to women entrepreneurs. With a past drowned in extreme poverty, it took a lot of calculated risk-taking for her to introduce her family to the luxury they know now.
With six children, three boys and three girls, Savita and her husband Devji, who was an AMTS bus conductor found it difficult to make ends meet. However, nagged by her own thoughts on how to contribute more for the welfare of her family, Savita soon began to sell unwanted coal disposed off from mills. Her customers gradually rose and she began to sell to hotels and lodges. A little bit of luck, and a favourable hand from an old businessman, things soon began to clear up for her. Savita set up a tile unit in 1991, called Sterling Ceramic; a small step to the many smaller enterprises she planted over the years. The company now bears an annual turnover of £20 million and boasts of over 200 employees.
Even today, she unfailingly visits her factory every day in the morning and takes up all important business-related decisions of the empire she started on her own. “The only thing that nagged me when my family faced extreme poverty was, to do something. I always wanted to do something. To be something. This is the thought that helped push me forward in life. Now that I am financially stable, and have a stout business sense, I wish to expand my business,” she said.
Savita was awarded the Bhimratna Award by Gujarat Congress Samiti last February. “An honour always makes one feel special. But it is the flourishing of my business that makes me truly happy. I also want my workers to enjoy their work, and my sons to work hard and take my legacy forward.”
