The Sona Group is a premier business group in India. The origins of the group can be traced back to pre-Independence India. The Group was founded by Kalaithanthai Karumuttu Thiagaraja Chettiar, who was moved by the plight of tea garden workers in the country. He was inspired to empower his fellow countrymen and enhance India’s economic development. He aimed to achieve this lofty goal through industrial development that would result in the employment of Indians. Since its inception in the 1920s, the Sona Group has pioneered India’s growth in the fields of agriculture, textiles, construction, IT, and education.
Our founder empowered tea plantation workers in India the way Gandhiji empowered mining workers in South Africa. The two men formed a lasting friendship. In 1938, it was in Kalaithanthai’s house that the famous ‘loin cloth’ incident took place, where Gandhiji removed his shirt and vowed never to wear one again after seeing daily wage laborers who could not afford even a shirt.
The British had set up the Indian education system in a systematic manner that would benefit their end goals, i.e., setting up many English schools for people to learn English, which would enable them to communicate with a larger number of Indian people. The British did not, however, invest much in higher education. This was a drawback for Indians. As a visionary, our founder decided that the best way to develop India in the long term was to set up world-class institutions of higher learning, especially in engineering. This also resulted in a backward integration of human resources for the Sona Group.
‘Kalaithanthai’ is a title that means ‘father of education’ which was bestowed on him by the people of the country for his pivotal contribution towards the development of higher education in India. As a philanthropic group grounded on its founder’s vision, Sona Group believes that “Education is Knowledge”. It has founded several educational institutions which are recognized as among the best in India today.