Velagapudi Ramakrishna

Velagapudi Ramakrishna CIE, (1896–1968) was an Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer, industrialist, and philanthropist. He started the KCP (Krishna Commercial Products) group of companies in 1941 with a co-operative sugar factory in Andhra Pradesh.^[1] He was a pioneering industrialist in the erstwhile Madras State.

Velagapudi Ramakrishna
Born	1896 (1896) Nagaram, India
Died	1968 (aged 71–72)
Nationality	Indian
Father	Velagapudi Venkata Subbayya Chowdary

Family

Ramakrishna was born in a Telugu-speaking landowning Kamma family to Velagapudi Venkata Subbayya Chowdary in 1896 in the village Bellamvaripalem (Nagaram mandal, near Repalle) in the Guntur district of India.^[2] He studied at The University of Edinburgh and acquired B.Sc. and M.A. degrees. He further was affiliated with the London School of Economics.^[2] His father (pre-adoption surname: Katragadda) originally came from Tellapadu, Maddipadu Mandal, in Prakasam District.^[3]

Ramakrishna died in 1968 and was survived by two sons and a daughter: V. Maruthi Rao, V. Lakshmana Dutt, and Rajeshwari Ramakrishnan.

Ramakrishna's second son, V. L. Dutt, a past chairman of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI),^[4][5][6][7] was the chairman and managing director of KCP Limited.^[8] His wife, Indira Dutt, is a daughter of the Raja of Muktyala and the President of the World Telugu Federation.^[9] Ramakrishna's daughter, Smt. Rajeswari Ramakrishnan, is the managing director of Jeypore Sugar Company Limited. Her son R. Prabhu is the Congress MP from the Nilgiris (Ooty), Tamil Nadu, a five-term Member of Parliament^[10] and a former Union minister in India.^[10]

Positions held

• District Collector
• Director, Department of Industries
• Commissioner, Labour
• Development Commissioner, Government of Madras
• Member of Parliament

Memorial institutions

• The Velagapudi Ramakrishna Siddhartha Engineering College, near Vijayawada has been posthumously named after him.^[11]
• He also funded the VSR & NVR College^[12] in Tenali and the Sri Velagapudi Ramakrishna Memorial College^[13] in Nagaram, Guntur district.
• The Andhra Chamber of Commerce building in Chennai^[14] has also been named after Velagapudi Ramakrishna.
• V Ramakrishna Polytechnic in Thiruvottiyur, Near Chennai is an institution within KCP campus and is named in memory of Velagapudi Ramakrishna.