MA Yusuff Ali, Bimal Shah and others amongst the poster boys of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas

Make in Gulf, invest in India

His rags-to-riches tale has made MA Yusuff Ali known as the Dhirubhai Ambani of the Gulf.

A native of Thrissur in Kerala, Ali has dabbled in several enterprises, including selling pressure cookers in Gujarat, before moving to Abu Dhabi to join his uncle's business in the 1970s. By 1990, he had set up Lulu Hypermarket. Today, he controls the $5.7 billion (revenues) Lulu Group, which has 110 hypermarkets, supermarkets and grocery outlets across the Middle East with plans to expand to Africa, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Ali, whose net worth is estimated to be $2.3 billion, ranked #40 on Forbes richest Indians list in 2013. In India for the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations (PBD) in Gandhinagar, he told TOI that Indian's youth have more opportunities at home today. “We are seeing growth in infrastructure and services. India has today become a brand to reckon with abroad,“ he says. In December, the Lulu group announced plans to invest Rs 2,500 crore in Telangana over the next one year in projects including a fruits and vegetables processing unit, an integrated meat processing unit and a modern shopping mall in Hyderabad.

Bread winner in Kenya

Bimal Shah recalls how his grand father Fulchand Gada had big dreams when he migrated to Kenya from Timbdi in Jamnagar, Gujarat in 1912. Gada started a small store in 1958, his two sons opened a single oven bakery called Broadway and sold bread to nearby towns and villages. In 1979, which was the year Bimal joined the family business, they upped their act setting up a bread making factory across four acres in Thika, 50 km north of Nairobi.

Today, Broadway Bakery Limited is among the biggest bread-making companies in East Africa, producing over 2.5 lakh loaves daily . Employing over 400 people, the bakery delivers bread to over 200 distributors and 200 supermarkets across all main towns. “We have also set up our own flour-mill called Bakex Millers Limited,“ says Shah, who is proud of his Indian-Kenyan heritage. In 2012, the family celebrated 100 years in Kenya and over 100 members of the extended family -who are now spread across the globe -participated. “We have assimilated into the local population and strive to contribute to Kenya's development,“ Shah says.

A frequent visitor to the state, he says a Gujarati never forgets his roots and the importance of qualities like compassion and dedication to community welfare. “Today, we conduct programmes in the slums around our plants, have set up charitable trusts for healthcare and education and have donated land for schools and social institutes,“ he says, adding, “I am happy with India's progress and would love to be part of the success story“.

Hotelier who checks in to his village

He calls himself an “accidental hotelier“, but Manhar `MP' Rama's growth in the industry has been a steady climb.

It wasn't all smooth-sailing for MP -born in Republic of Malawi, he was sent back to India for schooling. He worked on farms while pursuing his education and became an engineer. Moving to the US for higher studies, he raised his tuition money working a 9-to-5 job in the public works department, taking civil engineering classes at night. At this time, his fortunes turned. “My brother HP Rama got a rundown motel to run on lease, and I was there to help. We then realized that the sector was going to be a goldmine and dived in,“ he told TOI.

The four Rama brothers went on to build JHM Hotels, which today owns and operates 42 hotels across six states in the US. JHM also owns and operates a five-star hotel in Surat, India, developed in 1990 and in 2008, set up JHM Interstate Hotels, a New Delhi based joint venture which currently manages six hotels.

As director of operations, MP has been responsible for construction and management of all “ground-up“ hotels, and major renovations. He has been instrumental in setting up the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) and was its first president. On this trip to India, he says, “Indian Americans have worked hard, and deserve a say in issues affecting their homeland.“ MP , for one, hasn't forgotten where he came from. He has adopted Sarona, his native village near Navsari, Gujarat and built a mineral water plant, and hired a doctor for residents.

Helping with closure

NRI Ashraf Parakunmummal's worth cannot be computed by judging any company balance sheet and scanning global rich lists. His contributions can be deemed priceless.

The native of Kozhikode, Kerala owns a workshop in UAE's Ajman city . But his main charge is repatriating the bodies of Indians who die in the Gulf, whose relatives cannot afford the high cost of transporting the body by air. The remains are sent at his own expense, without considering nationality , religion or caste. “In the UAE, the migrant community is huge and many have no one to take care of their last rites. I realized this while helping a woman get her son's remains back to India,“ says Parakunmummal who has, over the last two decades, sent over 2,000 bodies to India and 37 other countries.

The 40-year-old was among the 15 awardees of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards conferred by Vice President Hamid Ansari on January 9. UAE's ambassador to India had introduced Parakunmummal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was impressed enough to nominate him for the award.