15/03/2025
*Meet the man with 27,500 daughters*
That’s what they call him – Appa.
His real name? KP Ramaswamy. Owner of KPR Mills, Coimbatore. A textile baron by profession. A father figure by choice.
While corporate honchos talk about employee retention, cost-cutting, and bottom lines, this man is busy transforming lives.
How? By turning mill workers into graduates. By making education their stepping stone to a better life.
It all started with a simple request. A young girl at his mill once told him –
"Appa, I want to study. My parents pulled me out of school because of poverty, but I want to study further."
That one sentence changed everything.
Instead of giving his workers just a paycheck, he decided to give them a future.
He set up a full-fledged education system – right inside the mill.
📌 Four-hour classes after an eight-hour shift.
📌 Classrooms, teachers, a principal, even a yoga course.
📌 All fully funded. No strings attached.
And the result?
🚀 24,536 women have earned their 10th, 12th, UG, and PG degrees.
🚀 Many are now nurses, teachers, police officers.
🚀 20 gold medallists from Tamil Nadu Open University this year alone.
Now, you’d expect a businessman to worry about attrition. What if these women leave? What about workforce stability?
Here’s what KP Ramaswamy says –
"I don’t want to keep them in the mill and waste their potential. They are here because of poverty, not by choice. My job is to give them a future, not a cage."
And that’s exactly what he does….
They leave. They build careers. And then? They send more girls from their villages to the mill. The cycle continues.
This isn’t just a CSR initiative. This is Human Resource Development in its truest sense.
At a recent convocation, 350 women received their degrees. And KP Ramaswamy made an unusual request –
"If you or your friends can hire them, it will give other girls the hope to study further."
Think about it. A man running a multi-crore empire isn’t asking for business. He’s asking for jobs – for his workers.
How often do we see this?
This story isn’t just about KPR Mills. It’s a lesson in leadership, in corporate ethics, in nation-building.
B-Schools should teach this.
HR professionals should study this.
And the world needs to know this.
A story worth spreading.
