Meet Shiv Nadar, India's most generous billionaire who donated Rs 1,161 crore, surpassed Mukesh Ambani in philanthropy

Shiv Nadar, a well-known figure in the IT sector, has been recognised as India's most generous philanthropist with an estimated annual donation of more than Rs 1,000 crore in 2022. According to EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2022, the 77-year-old businessman took the top spot back in 2022 after losing it to Wipro's Azim Premji the previous year. The founder of software behemoth HCL, Nadar, revealed that the education sector was his main motivation.

Who is Shiv Nadar?

Nadar was born in 1945 in the coastal village of Moolaipozhi in the Tamil Nadu region's Thoothukudi district to working-class household.  SP Adithanar, the creator of the prestigious Tamil daily Dina Thanthi, was his maternal uncle. The young Shiv came from a middle-class background.

He attended Madurai's Elango Corporation Higher Secondary School as well as Kumbakonam's Town Higher Secondary School. He completed his pre-university studies at the American College in Madurai before enrolling in the prestigious PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore to complete his electronics engineering degree.

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He has claimed in interviews that, as a result of his education in Tamil, he was unable to even talk in English until the age of 21. In 1967, following his graduation, he began working for the Walchand Group's Cooper Engineering Ltd. in Pune before transferring to Delhi Cloth Mills (DCM).

HCL was founded by Nadar in the middle of the 1970s, and over the course of the following three decades, he turned the IT hardware business into an IT firm. By establishing Far East Computers in Singapore in 1980 to sell IT hardware, HCL entered the global market. In its first year, the venture generated Rs 1 million in revenue and kept up with its Singapore operations.

Shiv Nadar: Net worth

According to Forbes estimate, Shiv Nadar has a staggering net worth of $24.2 billion (roughly Rs 1.9 lakh crore), making him the 5th richest person in India. He is one of the richest people in India, according to Forbes.