Aditya Vikram Birla: The industrial titan who outran the Licence Raj

Between 1969 and 1977, Aditya Birla established a string of companies like Indo-Thai Synthetics and Pan Century Edible Oils, the latter becoming the world’s largest single-location palm oil refinery. By 1995, this offshore strategy had yielded a global revenue exceeding ₹8,000 crore, with assets surpassing ₹9,000 crore across 55 plants across India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Egypt.