Chairman

Shri. Ajit Gulabchand is Chairman of the Administrative Council of WCE Sangli. He has provided vision, direction, and able leadership to the development of Walchand College of Engineering since 1997. 

He is Chairman of the Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) – one of India’s leading construction companies, founded by industrialist Seth Walchand Hirachand in 1926. A catalytic factor in the infrastructure growth of India, HCC has accomplished various pioneering achievements in the engineering and construction industry under his leadership.

A graduate of Mumbai University, he began his career as the Chief Executive of Indian Hume Pipe Co. Ltd. and subsequently moved on to Ravalgaon Sugar Farm Ltd. as Managing Director, steering the company towards fast-track growth.

At the helm of affairs in HCC since 1983, Mr. Gulabchand has been credited with a slew of path-breaking strategic management initiatives. Today, HCC is an acknowledged leader in the engineering and construction sector in India. A modern and vibrant construction company, it has kept pace with modern technology, is committed to quality and boasts of a knowledge asset of more than 3000 people. HCC is a business group of global scale developing and building responsible infrastructure through next practices. With an engineering heritage of nearly 100 years, HCC has executed a majority of India’s landmark infrastructure projects, having constructed 26% of India’s Hydro Power generation and 60% of India’s Nuclear Power generation capacities, over 4,036 lane km of Expressways and Highways, more than 360 km of complex Tunnelling and 395 Bridges. Today, HCC Ltd. serves the infrastructure sectors of Transportation, Power and Water.

Mr. Gulabchand is the visionary behind free India’s largest hill station, Lavasa, near Pune. Lavasa is spread across a picturesque landscape of 12,500 acres, set amidst 7 hills and 60 kms of lakefront.

Recognizing the importance of knowledge assets for building world class infrastructure, Mr. Gulabchand has the taken lead in ideating new concepts by investing in technical education and skills enhancement for HCC’s manpower and other training and technical institutions in the country such as NICMAR and the Walchand College of Engineering.

Corporate social responsibility remains intrinsic to Mr. Gulabchand’s vision for the group encompassing HIV, education, water, and disaster management initiatives. With a view to create a greater AIDS awareness in the industry, he has been instrumental in launching a work place intervention (WPI) program, covering more than 20,000 construction workers across HCC’s project locations.

Acknowledged for his visionary leadership in the industry, Mr. Gulabchand plays an important role in key industry bodies in India. He is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Council and the Chairman of CII’s National Committee on Construction and Projects. He has also served as a founding permanent member of the board of governors of the construction industry development council of India (CIDC). He initiated the formation of the Construction Federation of India (CFI) with other construction companies and is the founder and president since its inception in 2001.

Mr. Gulabchand is the Governor and steering board member of the Engineering and Construction community at the World Economic Forum, Geneva, and a member of the CII-World Economic Forum Infrastructure Task Force. He is also a founder member of the Geneva-based Disaster Resource Network (DRN) in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and International Red Cross. As Chairman of DRN India, he has been involved in disaster management during a number of natural disasters in India and abroad. He has also recently endowed a new ‘Ajit Gulabchand Chair’ on Indian Business Studies being set up at Oxford University and is a member of the Oxford International Advisory Board for Executive Education. He is also a signatory member of the United Nations Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate.

Mr. Gulabchand’s other associations with industry bodies include,