Babasaheb Neelkanth Kalyani (born 7 January 1949), known as Baba Kalyani, is an Indian industrialist and the chairman and managing director of Bharat Forge, the flagship of the Kalyani Group of Pune. He turned a small maker of forged parts into one of the world’s largest forging companies, supplying crankshafts and axles to global vehicle makers, and later led it into artillery and other defence equipment. He received the Padma Bhushan in 2008.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Babasaheb Neelkanth Kalyani |
| Born | 7 January 1949, Pune, Maharashtra, India |
| Age | 77 |
| Occupation | Industrialist |
| Post | Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Forge |
| Education | Rashtriya Military School, Belgaum; BITS Pilani (B.E. Mechanical, 1970); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.S.) |
| Spouse | Sunita Kalyani |
| Children | 1 son (Amit Kalyani) |
| Honour | Padma Bhushan (2008) |
Early Life
Kalyani is the son of Neelkanth Kalyani, a farmer’s son from Satara district who founded Bharat Forge in 1961. Baba went to a military school, studied mechanical engineering at Pilani and took a master’s at MIT.
Career
He joined the company in 1972, when it had a turnover of a few crore rupees and worked with hammers and manual labour. At the end of the 1980s he took a large risk, borrowing heavily to install automated forging presses and replacing much of the shop-floor workforce with engineering graduates. When the Indian truck market collapsed in the 1990s he turned to exports, and the company became a supplier to leading American, European and Japanese makers of trucks and cars.
From 2003 Bharat Forge bought forging companies in Germany, Sweden, Scotland and the United States, including Carl Dan Peddinghaus, and for a time was the second-largest forging company in the world. It later widened into parts for aircraft, railways, oil drilling and wind turbines to reduce its dependence on vehicles.
Kalyani began investing in defence around 2012, before private firms had firm orders. The group developed the Bharat 52 gun and, with the Defence Research and Development Organisation, the Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System, and has exported artillery. It also makes armoured vehicles and ammunition components.
Family Dispute
After his mother’s death in 2023, members of the family, including his sister Sugandha Hiremath and her children, went to court over the ownership of family holdings and of Hikal, a chemicals company. The cases continue.
Awards and Honours
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Baba Kalyani born?
Baba Kalyani was born on 7 January 1949 in Pune, Maharashtra, India and is 77 years old.
What is Baba Kalyani’s occupation?
Occupation: Industrialist.
Featured image: Baba Kalyani, chairman of Bharat Forge, at the Horasis India Meeting, Interlaken, Switzerland, June 2017. Photo by Horasis, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
