Purshottamdas Thakurdas
Indian businessman and industrialist (1879–1961)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir[1] Purshottamdas Thakurdas (1879–1961),[2] KBE CIE, was an Indian Gujarati cotton trader, banker and industrialist from Mumbai, India.[3][4][5][6]
He had served as the Sheriff of Bombay in 1920[7] and succeeded Sir Mathuradas Vissanji in 1922 as President of Cotton Association of India (later the Cotton Corporation of India).
He was a member of the Acworth Committee[8] and a member of the Hilton Young Commission.[9] He along with GD Birla then established the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry in 1927, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi.[10][11][12][13]
During the early 1930s there was a swing among the Indian businessmen towards a policy of more substantial compromise with the Raj, and they found Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, anxious to meet them half way:[14] "The 'liberal' and 'moderate' leaders, including the prominent Bombay businessman Purshottamdas Thakurdas, issued a statement from Bombay welcoming Irwin's declaration".[14]
On 12 November 1935, he was elected a member of the Local Board for the Western area of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and was the fourth longest-serving director on the Central Board of the RBI.
Thakurdas was one of the signatory of Bombay Plan,[15] which was set of proposals for the post-independence economy of India.[16][17] He headed the Foodgrain Policy Committee of 1947.[18]
