Chandigarh, January 23:/Former Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court, Mr. Justice S.S. Sodhi
(retd) released a book on “Making Entrepreneurs: Lessons from aLifetime” written by Padma Shri Chandra Mohan at a function organisedat The Hatch Centre in Chandigarh.Chandra Mohan, former Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of PunjabTractors and Swaraj Mazda, and currently Chairman of Punjab Technical
University’s First School of Excellence, has been an iconicentrepreneur and a thought-leader in Total Quality Management in theregion. Keshub Mahindra, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Mahindra &
Mahindra, in his foreword to the book writes: “The true genius ofChandra Mohan is his inquisitive searching mind and his capacity tothink out of the box.”Punjab’s Chief Minister Shri Parkash Singh Badal in his message forthe occasion remarked that the book “would go a long way in imbibingthe spirit of entrepreneurship amongst the budding industrialists.”He reiterated that even the honour of Padma Shri has been bestowedupon him for “his rare entrepreneurial acumen, business strategies,and being a management guru.”Prof. Rajneesh Arora, Vice Chancellor, Punjab Technical University,remarked that the book summarises Chandra Mohan’s outstanding lifeexperiences to develop entrepreneurship into a scientific programme tocreate a new breed of techno-entrepreneurs.Looking back, at the age of 80, Chandra Mohan has been entrepreneuringfor the last 48 years of his professional innings of 57 years, withtechnology and innovation as the focus. That journey still continues,with a patent in photovoltaic filed as recently as 2008. Of course, hesays, there have also been failures on the way – but they have notdeterred him from sculpting new dreams. “Innovation is seemingly anorganic component of my blood-stream,” he writes.The author has coupled his vast experience in promoting several youngtechno-entrepreneurs in diverse fields with his recent involvement inhigher technical education to evolve a pioneering concept ofsandwiching entrepreneurship with technical education. The book iswhat he himself describes “a critical self-analysis in search of aprocess for identifying potential entrepreneurs out of studentspursuing higher professional education and then grooming them forsetting up their projects along with their professional courses... andmentoring them all the way through till they are ready to commenceimplementation as they graduate.”With each of its chapters ending with highly useful tips encapsulatedunder “Learnings”, Chandra Mohan sees entrepreneurship as a social
responsibility. In the last chapter, “Creating the Zen forEntrepreneurship”, he aptly concludes, “This self-analysis of alifetime journey began with the objective of drawing some lessons tohelp a society promote the cult of entrepreneurship for raising itsliving standards.”The programme was organised by PTU’s Gian Jyoti School of TQM &Entrepreneurship and The Hatch in association with TiE, Chandigarh &Punjab, of which Mr Chandra Mohan himself was the founder Chairman.(Book has been published by Gyann Publishing House, New Delhi, pp.296. Rs.500)Mr. Chandra Mohan, former vice chairman and managing director of
Punjab Tractors Ltd and Swaraj Mazda, he is currently the chairman ofthe PTU’s Gian Jyoti School of TQM & Entrepreneurship.He is a rare blend of an engineer-scientist, an inventor, a visionary
entrepreneur, an educationist and, a top-class leader.After leading the development of the totally Indian Swaraj tractor inCMERI (1965-70), he raised India’s first large-scale venture based ontotally Indian technology, Punjab Tractors Ltd (PTL), for itscommercialization. He led PTL for 28 years as its CEO into thenationally and internationally known Rs. 1,500 crore Blue chip SwarajGroup of companies. Not only was promoting sound Techno-entrepreneursan integral part of PTL, this hands-down experience led to apex-levelinvolvement with every National Institution involved inentrepreneur-promotion.TQM and bridging the gulf between Industry & our Labs and TechnicalEducation have been his lifelong missions. He was a Member of theboard of governors of IIT-D in early eighties, Chairman of AICTE-North& President ARAI-Pune in the nineties. After retirement from PTL in1997 and fully active, he has pursued these issues full-time.
A driver of Change in re-orienting technical education and researchtowards industry and application, he is currently on the board ofgovernors of various reputed educational institutions :• Chairman, BOG : PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh• Chairman, GC : PTU’s Gian Jyoti School for TQM &Entrepreneurship, Mohali.• Member BOG : Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar.• Member BOM ; GGS Indraprastha Technical University, Delhi• Member BOG : Shriram Institute of Industrial Research, DelhiHe is also Chairman/ Director on the Boards of reputed listedcompanies. He recently joined the Board of System Biology Worldwide, aFinnish JV between Helsinki University & an Indian entrepreneur to
accelerate commercial exploitation of its R&D.His book “From Zero to Blue-chip” (2001) is a lesson in management inthe Indian environment.
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