Quick Facts
Biography
Ramachandra Naidu Galla (born 1938) is an Indian industrialist, the founder of the Amara Raja Group of companies. He is married to Aruna Kumari Galla, an ex.minister in the Andhra Pradesh state government.
Career
Galla was born on June 10, 1938, in the village of Petamitta in Chitoor District, Andhra Pradesh, in south-eastern India. He did his bachelors in Electrical Engineering at Sri Venkateswara University, then took a master's degree from the College of Engineering Roorkee, now in Uttarakhand and a second master's degree at Michigan State University. After leaving Michigan, he worked as an Electrical Engineer for Sargent & Lundy a consulting engineers firm engaged in the design of Fossil and nuclear Power projects.He returned to India in the 1980s, when he founded Amara Raja Batteries in Chittoor; the group spun off a number of subsidiaries, including Galla Foods and Mangal Precision Products. The group currently has an annual turnover of Rs. 1900 crore, approximately US$315 million.
In 1998, he was awarded the Hyderabad Management Association's Entrepreneur of the Year award. In 2007 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Sri Venkateswara University (Tirupati) and in 2008 an honorary doctorate from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad.
Charitable work
Galla has established a number of charitable trusts. They include the Krishna Devaraya Educational & Cultural Association, which provides educational scholarships to poor students in higher education, and the Rajanna Trust and Mangal Trust, which works on providing accessible water supplies to villages.