Mahashya Dharampal Gulati, the owner of MDH Spices, died of heart attack at the age of 98 on Wednesday at 5.30 am. He was undergoing treatment in Delhi for the last three weeks. Mahashya Dharampal was awarded the Padma Bhushan( third highest Civilian Honour of India) last year for his contribution to the industry. He once used to roam on the streets of Delhi and then became a billionaire businessman.
Life of Padma Bhushan Awardee Dharampal Ji
Dharampal’s family lived in Sialkot, Pakistan. He was not interested in studying. In 1933, he did not even passed the fifth class and left the books forever. One after the other, he switched many jobs. His father was worried, then he opened a spice shop in Sialkot. This was his ancestral business. The shop was named as Mahashian Di Hatti in Punjabi, which is also the full form of MDH.
Everything was going well, later the country was divided. Sialkot area was now under Pakistan. The family left everything and moved to Delhi in September 1947. At that time he was only 20 years old. He had seen and felt the pain of Partition very well. He knew that the family had left everything in Pakistan and had to start all over again in India.
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They only had 1500 rupees in with them, of which he bought 650 rupees tanga. Since Mahashay was delighted in business, he stopped riding Tanga after two months. He once again started making and selling spices at home.
Dharampal set up the first factory in Kirtinagar, Delhi with small capital. Today MDH is spreading its taste and fragrance in the country and the world. Its spices are found in many countries including London, Sharjah, America, South Africa, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore. There are more than 1000 distributors and more than four lakh retail dealers. The turnover is around 2000 crores. This company has modern machines, which can grind and pack 30 tons of spices in a day.
Social work by him
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Dharampal felt and saw tough days in his life in trouble, so he was always at the front to share the pain of others. He founded the Mahashya Chunnilal Charitable Trust in the name of his father. Under this, many schools, hospitals and ashrams have been built, which are engaged in helping the poor and the needy.
Most recently, he supported the fight against the novel coronavirus by donating PPE kits and an undisclosed amount to the Delhi CM Relief Fund.