HENNING HOLCK-LARSEN was born on July 4, 1907 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The only son of Louis Holger Christian Larsen, stationmaster of Copenhagen, and Ida Jörgensen, HENNING has one younger sister. As is often done in Denmark to acknowledge relationship, he was given a surname combining a family name from his mother's side with his father's family name. He attended Jesuit primary and secondary schools and in 1922 entered the Metropolitanskolen (high school) of Copenhagen from which he graduated in 1925. During his high school years he traveled with his parents to Sweden, Germany and Austria and vowed to see more of the world when he grew older. He feels his interest in foreign countries and his urge to travel may have been inculcated from his father who, in 1898, left the Danish Railways and joined a railway construction company in South Africa. When the Boer War started, he joined on the Boer side and won two medals for bravery until malaria forced him to return to Denmark, where he rejoined the Danish Railways.

Attracted to mathematics, physics and chemistry, HOLCK-LARSEN entered the University of Copenhagen where he took some liberal arts courses but did his major study in The Royal School of Polytechnics which was under the university. He completed his work for a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering in 1930. Even before he took his final examinations he had been hired by the important engineering firm of F. L. Smidth & Co A/S of Copenhagen which was the world leader in cement technology—designing and supplying cement-making machinery and complete cement factories worldwide.

"I made it a condition of my employment that I would be sent out quickly," HOLCK-LARSEN relates. Accordingly, he traveled extensively for F. L. Smidth during the 1930s, first as a cement chemist and later as a sales engineer. Business trips took him to Poland, Estonia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Iraq. In December 1935 he was delegated to Bombay, India, on a special mission connected with a proposed merger of the Indian cement factories. That job being successfully concluded with the creation of Associated Cement Companies—still the major cement group in India—he was responsible for setting up F. L. Smidth's Indian office. As a reward for assistance in achieving the merger F. L. Smidth was given an order for three new cement works. "The contract for 650,000 pounds sterling was so large for that time that no one from among the Associated Cement Companies dared to sign it," HOLCK-LARSEN remembers, "except the chairman of Tata Industries." The head of F. L. Smidth, who had come from Denmark, told HOLCK-LARSEN he had better accompany him for the signing, for "never in your life will you see such a big contract signed." HOLCK-LARSEN tells this story with a hearty laugh, having since then himself signed much larger contracts for his own company.

In India HOLCK-LARSEN renewed his acquaintance with a fellow Danish engineer, Soren Kristian Toubro, who had attended the same Royal School of Polytechnics and joined F.L. Smidth a year ahead of him. Toubro had been lent out to one of the cement groups to help run some of their factories.

During 1937 and 1938 HOLCK-LARSEN visited Madagascar, La Reunion and Mauritius, resuming to India in April 1938. In Bombay, in May the following year, he married Karen Speyer, also of Danish nationality.

On May 1, 1938, HOLCK-LARSEN and Soren Kristian Toubro left F. L. Smidth, formed a partnership and established the firm of Larsen & Toubro to import machinery to India from Scandinavia. They employed a clerk and a messenger and adopted the motto, "In Service Lies Success." They were to adhere to this motto as the firm grew from the two-man partnership to become (in 1976) the 19th largest private sector company in India.

The firm's import business came to a standstill with the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 and the occupation of Denmark by the Germans in April 1940. A new and vital role in the war effort began with the offer from the British admiralty to manage the repair ship M.V. "Hilda," to be run as the first emergency floating dock in Bombay harbor. Larsen & Toubro turned its attention to the repair, conversion and arming of merchant ships, fitting them with guns, machine gun nests, bridge protection and "de-gaussing" equipment designed to demagnetize ships to protect them from magnetic mines. Prior to the war, the firm had commenced the manufacture of India's first indigenous dairy equipment, and during wartime it supplied milk pasteurizers, butter churns and various mobile dairy equipment to the military authorities for shipment to war fronts in North Africa and Mesopotamia where British and Indian troops were stationed. It also ventured into making augmenting charges for mortar shells, and developed local substitutes for rennet and pituitary extract. The latter was required by the army to be used against shell shocks.

A wartime sideline for HOLCK-LARSEN and Toubro was the formation of Engineering Construction Corporation as a separate three-man partnership with a Danish detainee Gerhard J. Berg. Berg and three other Danes had been taken into custody in Iran by the British on the unfounded suspicion of Nazi affiliation and transferred to a detention camp in India. HOLCK-LARSEN and Toubro met the three and sent food and books to them and their wives in the camp. When the British discovered their error and told them they could be released if they could find occupations, only Berg had no company association in India. "He was a capable man," HOLCK-LARSEN relates," so Toubro and I sat together with him one evening and decided to form the Engineering Construction Corporation to get him started. That company is today one of the biggest and most respected design and general contracting companies in India." Registered in Bombay in 1944 as a private company, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Limited in 1959.

After the war the partners purchased from the naval authorities the machine tools they had been using on M.V. "Hilda" and sought capital to establish themselves as a peacetime engineering company. With funds forthcoming from friends, Larsen and Toubro converted into a private limited company in 1946. Success brought the need for further expansion and more capital and the public limited company of Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T) was formed two years later, its shares becoming available on the Bombay stock exchange. The majority of the board of directors was Indian, as was the new capital, which initially came primarily from "employees and well-wishers."

At the end of the war the partners had clearly foreseen that India was soon to become an independent nation and made a policy decision that was to have important consequences both for the company and for India. Instead of going into the more lucrative field of manufacturing consumer goods which were in demand and returned a quick profit, the firm elected to produce machinery necessary to the development of the nation, including equipment for heavy industry, and various import substitutions. In the succeeding years the firm stayed with its original commitment and, as HOLCK-LARSEN has said, based its "policies on the aims and objects of India's five year plans."

HOLCK-LARSEN and Toubro functioned as a remarkably agreeable team of two chief executives, alternating yearly as chairman of the board of directors. Toubro, however, had felt increasingly that he must choose between the firm and his family after his wife had gone to Denmark to keep a home for their daughter and son while they were in Danish schools. In 1963, at the age of 57, he retired and returned to Denmark confident that the venture he and HOLCK-LARSEN had launched 25 years earlier was viable and in step with independent India.

The policies which HOLCK-LARSEN and Toubro initiated in those early years, and which have been maintained, often with difficulty, are similar to those adopted more recently as guidelines by the Indian government: "Indianization of personnel; recruitment and promotion by merit; democratic management and provision of good working conditions; development of indigenous know-how and capability; export promotion and import substitution; and a high rate of reinvestment of surpluses to attain a rapid rate of growth."

Although L&T has always—since its formation in 1946—been an Indian company, it realized that the skills and engineering talents of India had to be supplemented by technical know-how from abroad. From the beginning it utilized international expertise by importing foreign machine tools, buying licenses to produce foreign designed products, or buying outright drawings, specifications and technical know-how and sending Indian engineers to be trained in factories abroad. This proved cheaper than to import foreign experts and has enabled L&T to maintain international standards and keep abreast of the latest in technological development.

In the beginning, independent research and development (R&D) was not possible—the company had neither the funds nor the expertise to invest in long-term research. Nevertheless L&T continuously sought to adapt to Indian needs the foreign designed machinery, and to improve upon foreign licensed designs, sometimes to the point that it could sell a license for the improvements back to its principals.

Today R&D is a major and growing portion of L&T's business. Although still far more expensive to undertake than foreign license buying, political imperatives and the increasing need for independence mandate the greater investment in R&D: the government of India is reluctant to allow excessive foreign exchange funds out of the country, and national pride requires development of Indian technology.

The company's R&D is concentrating on "development of products, new designs and preparation of prototypes" and, so far, not on basic research. The company collaborates with, and to a large extent relies upon, the National Laboratories for the latter.

Over 200 engineers are at present engaged in product research in L&T's new four-story R&D unit which became operational in 1976. The unit has several laboratories for material testing, metallography and heat transfer. It also has a technical library and documentation center; enabling it to become a "storehouse of technical expertise in critical and sophisticated areas" and a "generator of future technology." A new section has already been added to facilitate R&D on switchgears which are a substantial component of the L&T line and which have been developed, for the most part, as the result of L&T research.

The company's headquarters is in Bombay and its major manufacturing plants and its regional office are in Bombay's suburb of Powai. Other works are in Madh Island, Bombay, in Madras and in Bangalore. Three other regional offices are located in India's other major cities—Calcutta, Madras and New Delhi—and eleven branch offices are scattered throughout India from Lucknow in the state of Uttar Pradesh to Bangalore in Karnataka, and from Ahmedabad in Gujarat to Cochin in Kerala. The dispersal of branch offices and manufacturing plants throughout the country is a conscious effort to create new employment opportunities and centers of modernization outside the major industrial cities. "It is our ultimate aim to have at least one large unit in every state," HOLCK-LARSEN declares, and "we have laid the greatest emphasis on starting plants and manufacturing facilities in underdeveloped areas."

L&T today is the "L&T Group," with four subsidiaries and four associate companies. These, too, are dispersed. Of the subsidiaries, Utkal Machinery Ltd. (abbreviated to UTMAL) was started in April 1960, with the technical and financial collaboration of Voith, GHH and Koppers of West Germany, at Kansbahal, Orissa, a site carved out of the jungle. L&T Drilling Equipment Ltd. was begun in August the same year, in technical and financial collaboration with Christensen Diamond Projects Co., and Longyear Co., both of the U.S., on Madh Island, Bombay. In 1976 it was amalgamated with L&T with a view to effecting economies and operating efficiency. L&T-McNeil Ltd. was established in March 1972 at Manapakkam, Madras, with the technical and financial collaboration of McNeil Akron, Ohio, USA. The wholly owned subsidiary, Engineering Construction Corporation, which began as the wartime three-man partnership in Bombay, today has its commercial and technical headquarters in Madras; it operates at scores of work sites across the country and abroad.

Of the four associate companies, Eutectic Welding Alloys of India Ltd., which was formed in association with Castopar Societé de Participations et d'Etudes Castolin S.A., Switzerland, and Tractor Engineers Ltd. which is an L&T-Caterpillar joint venture, are located at Powai. Audco India Ltd., which was established in collaboration with Serck Audco Valves, U.K., has its factory in Madras.

In 1973, L&T was offered and purchased a major shareholding of Hindustan Brown Boveri Ltd., an important manufacturer of specialized electrical equipment. The other shareholder was Brown Boveri Ltd. of Baden, Switzerland. L&T took over the selling agency and established an efficient sales network. Hindustan Brown Boveri has its head office in Bombay and factories in Baroda (Gujarat), Faridabad (Haryana) and Howrah (West Bengal).

The main facilities in design and manufacturing for the L&T Group. are, nevertheless, at Powai, Bombay, where over half the 10,000 member staff of L&T and its subsidiaries are employed. L&T built its first plant there in 1948, a total roofed area of 2,747 square meters. In 1975 its plants and facilities totaled 120,000 square meters located in two industrial parks, West Powai (the original development) and East Powai. Sited on approximately 34 landscaped hectares the engineering offices and factories are modern and in keeping with their lovely lakeside location. Forty-five departments are accommodated. The main activities at Powai are the manufacture of industrial plant and machinery, and of electric switchgear and bottle closures. A giant sheet metal fabrication plant, a switchgear factory, a heavy engineering shop, plus well equipped machine shops and design offices turn out equipment for power plants, and for the fertilizer, petrochemical, petroleum, pharmaceutical, cement, paper and steel industries. They also manufacture high precision equipment for India's nuclear power plants, and for the dairy, brewery, distilling and food processing industries. Parts for heavy earthmoving equipment are manufactured there in collaboration with Caterpillar Tractor Co. of Peoria, Illinois, USA, and electrical equipment in collaboration with Unelec of France.

From the beginning L&T has concerned itself with major development fields necessary to building and strengthening India's economy. Basic to industrial growth is power. In India's search to develop indigenous power sources, L&T has played its part. L&T-DEC (Drilling Equipment Corporation) makes diamond core drills for both onshore and offshore exploration and, as the sales representative of world renowned oil drilling equipment firms such as Halliburton and TRW of the U.S., supplies equipment for petroleum exploration. Where others hesitated, L&T accepted the challenging task of manufacturing for the government of India the first calandrias (nuclear reactor vessels) for the Rajasthan and the Madras atomic power plants; it supplied the second order in 1976. It has also designed and manufactured end shields, end shield rings and auxiliary heat exchangers for nuclear plants, and equipment for heavy water plants; and it designs and manufactures pressure vessels and heavy duty heat exchangers for thermal power plants.

Cement has always been a major field for L&T since both HOLCK-LARSEN and Toubro began their careers as chemical engineers in cement manufacturing. The company produces a wide range of cement plant machinery and equipment in collaboration with F.L. Smidth of Denmark, and makes rotary kilns for metallurgical industries. In several fields, it undertakes complete turnkey projects—i.e. the plant is designed, built and furnished by L&T and handed over to the buyer ready for operation. In this category, and working with DDS of Denmark, it recently installed India's first plant for conversion of starch (corn) into dextrose monohydrate (com sugar); dextrose monohydrate is used for manufacturing Vitamin C and penicillin. L&T's work included basic and detailed engineering, procurement services, erection supervision and commissioning of the plant. It is currently manufacturing specialized critical equipment for use therein. L&T has also completed, again for the first time in India, a suspended particles drying plant for titanium dioxide, and another for tile clay; on these it worked in cooperation with Niro Atomizer of Denmark.

In food processing, L&T has designed, supplied and installed complete dairy plants for processing liquid milk and for manufacturing milk products. It works in close collaboration with the National Dairy Development Board and supplies equipment for the Board's "Operation Flood," a scheme to supply clean milk to large urban populations and at the same time assist in the expansion of the dairy husbandry industry. L&T built high speed bottling plants for the new dairies at Delhi and Calcutta which are capable of handling 24,000 bottles per hour and it supplied a part of the milk transport equipment. It offers turnkey breweries, and plant and equipment for freeze drying, meat processing, etc., using the technical know-how it has developed, and drawing on a worldwide range of foreign manufacturing experts through licensing or import arrangements. L&T's plant in Bangalore manufactures, under license from Poclain, France, multipurpose hydraulic excavators.

The major field of L&T designed products—as distinguished from products manufactured under license or purchased designs—is in switchgears, valves, circuit breakers, and electronic control panels, either standardized or made to specification, for the control of power in a wide range of basic industries.

Although the bulk of its sales are accounted for by products produced in the company's own workshops, L&T also sells the products of its subsidiaries and associates. The company's sales turnover totaled Rs.698 million (US$106 million) in 1975-76; L&T Group sales totaled Rs.1128 million (US$171 million).

Through its subsidiary UTMAL, L&T supplies the steel industry with plant and equipment for iron and steel works, including complete blast-furnace installations, pig-casting machines and hot metal mixers, and it offers machinery for the paper, pulp and board industries fabricated by UTMAL to the design of Voith of West Germany. It sells indigenous circuit breakers, current transformers, transmitter antennae, etc., for power stations and railways manufactured by its associate Hindustan Brown Boveri, and it markets, on behalf of its associate Audco, valves for a wide range of applications for the chemical, fertilizer, steel, rayon and other industries. It is involved with McNeil in marketing large curing presses and other machinery for the manufacture of rubber tires and, through Eutectic, supplies special welding alloys, processes and techniques to help industries extend the life of their machinery and to cut down the time machinery is inoperative because of repairs. Through Tractor Engineers Limited (TENGL), a joint venture with Caterpillar Tractor Co., U.S.A., it supplies undercarriage parts for heavy earthmoving machinery.

Combined with its sales is an after-sales service that reaches the entire country.

L&T's sales are not limited to India, however. A major effort has been made by L&T to find foreign markets in order to expand and earn foreign exchange. Today it exports aluminum capsules and crown corks for bottles; valves and switchgear items; petrol dispensing and metering pumps; welding alloys; dairy plant and equipment, and drilling equipment. It recently fabricated, supplied and erected a cane sugar diffuser for a sugar cane factory in Malaysia. Engineering Construction Corporation (ECC) has a significant record of exporting engineering service to the Arabian gulf states for building petroleum based industrial plants.

In spite of the 1974-75 recession L&T increased its foreign sales from Rs.21 million to Rs.32 million. In the fiscal year 1975-76 L&T's expenditure in foreign currency for royalties and technical know-how (60 percent) and other was Rs.6,228,167. Earnings in foreign currency on sales of goods was Rs.16,158,397 and on commissions for fees and services—most of it earned by ECC—Rs.5,525,045, making a balance of payments in favor of L&T of Rs.15,455,275. In 1976 L&T was exporting to Europe (Denmark, UK, USSR), Africa (Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mauritius), the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Qatar), South and Southeast Asia (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong) and Australia. It had repeat orders for petrol pumps from the Soviets.

One reason for L&T's continued growth, HOLCK-LARSEN thinks, is: "We try to do difficult things. We don't shirk away from intricate new tasks. Also . . . we are quite prepared to give things up . . . so quite often, when we have developed a line and it becomes easy, too easy, we give it up and leave it to 'the bazaar'—i.e. the smaller industries which are rapidly coming up in India."

Another reason is that the management of L&T has been flexible and open to new management techniques and new ideas at both the production, marketing and management level. In keeping with its desire to be in the vanguard L&T management recently called in the Indian Institute of Management, India's premier management consulting group, to suggest how the group could react more quickly and meaningfully to market information. The institute's suggestions, which were followed almost 100 percent, were to centralize planning, budget and controls, and to group product lines on a more rational basis. The company has therefore been reorganized into four groups that cover 1) agriculture and earthmoving, 2) heavy equipment for industry, 3) switchgear and electronics equipment, and 4) other business lines and associated companies. Each group is headed by a general manager who is responsible for the profits of his group, which, in turn, is divided into several divisions. The company is "operations oriented right to the top." The top, of course, is HOLCK-LARSEN, Chairman of the Board and chief executive officer. From 20 foreigners two decades ago he is the only remaining expatriate in the management; the last two others left in 1976.

L&T has also consistently maintained successful relations with its employees. HOLCK-LARSEN has always believed that the growth of a firm is dependent upon satisfied employees and on their personal and professional development. He has had three criteria, therefore: employ the best possible candidate, keep him happy with his working conditions and give him opportunities to grow.

To find the best qualified engineers L&T visits Indian technical colleges and universities to sign up students, even before they graduate. Interestingly it no longer seeks a commitment only from the top students because the company has learned over the years that most of those will qualify for foreign study grants, and far from all will return to India. Therefore it often seeks the next level of students and gives them further training on the job or at Indian universities. In HOLCK-LARSEN’s opinion the Indian engineers, designers and inventors are not inferior to their American or European counterparts; "if anything," he comments, "they are a little better because they work more, they are extremely interested in their work, have simpler habits in respect to eating and drinking, and they are usually very loyal to the task and to the company employing them." On the design and invention side he often finds them superior. He considers the young managers equally capable.

HOLCK-LARSEN has always believed in giving administrators and engineers responsibility at a young age and insists that appointment and promotion be on merit alone. The pressures on the company to appoint "nephews" of officials in the various government bodies the company deals with have been resisted. L&T will interview anyone who comes well recommended but will only hire him if he is as good as his competition. The value of this is that not only does the company escape being saddled with deadwood, the morale of the staff is high because each person knows that he will not be superseded by "someone's less able protégé."

Most staff are given two-year on the job training in various fields to gauge their talents, with monthly or bimonthly reports made on their progress, and then guided toward what they do best. With good working conditions and work that interests and stimulates them, most professional people stay. The only real temptation is an offer abroad. Every effort is made to provide the staff and their families with housing at new sites such as at UTMAL, Kansbahal, Orissa, and with welfare centers, sport facilities, and family entertainment and classes.

Ninety percent of the labor required by L&T is skilled labor and as in many developing countries it is in short supply. L&T trains prospective employees in large groups as welders, painters, finishers, machinists, carpenters and quality controllers. While they are in training these apprentices are taught floor discipline, good housekeeping and how to present grievances in a constructive manner. Training may last a year or more and the trainees are paid good wages and have hospitalization and other worker perquisites. Even if L&T cannot hire all of those trained, the others can get good jobs elsewhere on the basis of their L&T experience. Of the Indian worker HOLCK-LARSEN says: "He is good, hardworking, and painstaking. He is a fine and willing craftsman. Perhaps his productivity is not as high as the productivity of his counterparts in the U.S. and Europe; that probably has something to do with lower nutritional and health standards over generations."

With L&T training is a continuous process, not a one-time affair. Under the company's performance-appraisal scheme the management, from the supervisory level upwards (some 1,400), are regularly asked if they feel they would benefit by further training. Nearly 80 percent usually answer in the affirmative. The personnel department keeps all department heads posted on courses available at the four leading management training institutes; it does not endorse any course, allowing the department or the individual to make the selection. An example of the interest in such training is that in the first nine months of 1975 some 250 persons took external courses and 850 took in-company training. HOLCK-LARSEN himself has not had any formal management training, but President N.M. Desai studied at the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University, and other top management personnel have studied in the School of Business Administration in Lausanne, Switzerland.

For laborers, the Workers' Education Scheme of the government of India was introduced at Powai in June 1970 by having a few company workers trained as "teachers." The teachers conduct education classes to give workers a better understanding of industrial relations, productivity, discipline, the trade union movement, labor laws and such personal things as family budgeting. The classes are conducted in both English and Marathi (the local language). From time to time union representatives are sent for special training on trade union matters.

Of benefit both to the workers and the company was the company's introduction of the Suggestion Scheme at Powai in 1964, its extension to the L&T head office in 1966, and to some subsidiaries in 1970. Proposed to Indian industry by the Ministry of Labor Employment and Rehabilitation, the objectives of the scheme for workers are to: 1) provide an organized method for submitting, evaluating and implementing suggestions; 2) develop the creative power of employees; 3) give recognition to individual talents, and 4) improve relations between management and employees by providing a two-way communication between them. For industry the scheme is a cost reduction tool to improve efficiency, reduce wastage and simplify methods and procedures.

Suggestions are related to:

• Material (eliminating a component, substitution of imported by indigenous material, use of cheaper material without affecting product quality);
  
• Handling of Materials (reducing handling, shortening distance to be moved, eliminating or reducing delivery delays to departments/machines);
  
• Operations (eliminating or simplifying an operation, combining two or more operations, reducing operation time by using modified tools);
  
• Machines and Equipment (improvement in location of machines, ideas for new tools and machines for jobs done manually);
  
• Working Conditions (ideas for accident prevention, seating, bench heights and other factors to reduce worker fatigue and for improving cleanliness and tidiness in shops), and
  
• Quality (ideas for improving and maintaining quality).

At L&T, suggestions received have increased from 245 in 1964-65 to 1,511 in 1974-75 and are now being received at the rate of 150 per month. One out of every four is awarded an average of Rs.132 and the highest award paid was Rs.7,400. Awards are calculated on the basis of 20 percent of the yearly savings in direct material and labor less effective implementation cost, which is taken as 40 percent of the total implementation cost to provide for depreciation, interest, opportunity cost, etc.

Under L&T's program for training and development, the small businesses that supply the company with items the company finds uneconomic to manufacture are not forgotten. A team of engineers in the material control department "continuously locates, develops and appraises the subcontractors and vendors" and is doing its utmost to help them develop consistently high quality products and making every effort to keep the relationship mutually beneficial.

Besides training and development L&T offers a wide range of social and welfare services to its employees. The company provides athletic fields and a gymnasium. It has libraries with some 5,000 books—technical, popular or for general constructive reading—in English and Marathi, and subscribes to 200 periodicals of a technical nature in Indian and foreign languages. Canteens and pantries, managed by the L&T Consumers' Cooperative Society, are subsidized by the company; in 1973 it spent Rs.330,000 on such subsidy. In that year the administrative staff of the Powai works proposed as an economy measure cutting down on the subsidy or reducing the quantity of food served to the workers. HOLCK-LARSEN took the position that the workers should not suffer in this way; food prices had risen so much that workers were already hard put to get even one decent meal at their homes, he argued, hence while at work they should get wholesome, nutritious meals at subsidized prices. A Cooperative Credit Society encourages thrift and makes available low interest loans; some 70 percent of the workers save through the Credit Society. Social get-togethers are encouraged. The company contributes toward picnics and department socials, and puts on an annual gathering of all L&T employees with several scheduled performances of renowned artists. Another important service the company provides the workforce is transportation aid: 40 free buses transport workers and staff to Powai from the five local railway stations, a service costing L&T some Rs.4 million per year.

On the medical/welfare side, the Medical Center at Powai has a doctor and assistants on duty at all times. It not only handles emergency cases, it stresses preventive medicine by providing regular checkups for all and particular checkups for workers in fields known to have specific risks. The Welfare Center deals with the needs of the whole family, providing counseling and family planning information; offering courses for wives and daughters in handicrafts, nutrition, cooking, sewing and other skills, and making possible educational opportunities for children of deceased or incapacitated employees. There is also a Family Relief Fund administered by the company. This is a purely voluntary organization; over 5,000 employees have joined. Its purpose is to give immediate financial assistance to families of employees who die while in the company. Each volunteer contributes Rs.1 to a family when the need arises. Twenty-five families benefited in the first six years.

L&T reflects today, as it has from the beginning, the values of its co-founder and chief executive, HOLCK-LARSEN. He sees a factory not just as a place to manufacture goods for profit but as a means to greater ends—as the means of achieving national development goals and at the same time personal growth. HOLCK-LARSEN finds it strange that anyone in India should call L&T a foreign firm: "It is an historical accident that the Danish names of its founders stuck to the firm through its progress from a miniature partnership with a staff of two in 1938 to a giant public limited company employing more than 10,000 people and supporting another 200,000. It is neither a Denmark-based foreign firm nor a multinational corporation." Ninety-seven percent of the capital is held by more than 25,000 Indian shareholders; the largest of these are financial institutions like the Life Insurance Corporation and nationalized banks which hold 28 percent of the shares. The remaining three percent are held by foreigners of whom the majority are residents in India. "L&T from the outset has been a company with the object of establishing trade, commerce and manufacturing by and for the people of India," its co-founder says emphatically.

A large, imposing man, now white-haired with neat clipped mustache, deliberate of speech, humble—"the most humble and accessible executive in the organization"—HOLCK-LARSEN is greatly respected for his outstanding qualities of head, heart and leadership skills. Widely read, and a lover and promoter of art and music, his appreciation for beauty extends to an appreciation for the beauty of the environment. The factories at Powai are in a garden-like setting. Framed in L&T offices and in his own home is Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem "Success," which he has taken and encouraged his colleagues to take as a credo:

"To laugh often and love much
To win the respect of intelligent persons
and the affection of children
To earn the approbation of honest
critics and endure the betrayal
of false friends
To appreciate beauty
To find the best in others
To give of one's self
To leave the world a little better, whether
by a healthy child, a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition
To have played and laughed with
enthusiasm and sung with exultation
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived
This is to have succeeded."