The history of Aditya Birla Group goes back to 1857, a multinational conglomerate that has been dealing with a wide range of brands and services for over 166 years. G.D. Birla started the group and it currently operates across six continents and 36 countries. In 2023, the group is worth $65 billion as per a Forbes report. The business scion leading this legacy business is Kumar Mangalam Birla who is assisted by his family members. Rajashree Birla, Kumar’s mother has been associated with the business for years now. She is the wife of the late Aditya Birla and has been actively involved with the group’s philanthropic arm.
About Rajashree Birla’s early life
Rajashree was born in 1947 in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, into a family with origins in Rajasthan, in the country’s northwest. Radhakishen Fomra, her father, worked as a dealership agent for Burmah Shell. Parvati Devi Fomra, her mother, was a housewife. The family belonged to the Maheshwari subcaste and were Marwari Vaishyas.
In Madurai, Rajashree and her sisters attended St. Joseph’s Convent School. After marriage, she received a degree in arts from Loreto College in Kolkata.
As per Marwari tradition, her wedding with Aditya Birla was held in three parts. When Rajashree was about 10 years old, the engagement was carried out. Rajashree underwent the initial ceremony of marriage when she was 14 years old, and the final rituals were conducted when she was 17 years old. She moved into her in-law’s home in Kolkata at this moment, leaving her parents’ home in Madurai. In June 1967, Rajashree gave birth to Kumar Mangalam Birla, and in June 1976 to Vasavdatta Bajaj.
Rajashree Birla’s role in Aditya Birla Group
Rajashree Birla chairs the Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development, the charitable arm of the Aditya Birla Group, which is responsible for the conglomerate’s corporate social responsibility (CSR). She also serves on the boards of her family’s enterprises in India and internationally. Along with her son Kumar Mangalam Birla and his family, she resides in South Mumbai.
In 2006, Rajashree Birla spent $30 million building the 325-bed Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital in Pune as a memorial to her late husband, as per Forbes. The Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development is in charge of running the hospital complex, which is situated on an 18-acre plot of land and is supported by the Aditya Birla Foundation.
Birla is in charge of all of the Group’s businesses’ social and welfare-focused activities. Over 7,000 villages are included in the activity of the Centre, which affects 9 million people. Over a million patients are seen by the Aditya Birla Group’s 20 hospitals and 5,000 medical clinics. Over 46,500 youngsters receive an education from its 56 institutions spread across India. Its schools and hospitals are also “Not For Profit” organisations.
Rajashree Birla serves on the boards of Habitat for Humanity (India), the FICCI-Aditya Birla CSR Centre for Excellence, and the Asia Pacific Committee. She is also a member of Habitat’s global committee.
Rajashree Birla’s awards
Leading national and international institutions have praised Rajashree Birla for her outstanding work and honoured her with awards. The most notable of these was when the Indian government gave Rajashree Birla the “Padma Bhushan” Award in 2011 for her contributions to humanitarian work. Pratibha Patil, the former President of India, presented Rajashree Birla with the highly sought “Polio Eradication Champion” Award at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi in commemoration of her tireless efforts to eradicate polio.
