Velagapudi Ramakrishna


Velagapudi Ramakrishna was an Indian Civil Service officer, industrialist, and philanthropist. He started the KCP group of companies in 1941 with a co-operative sugar factory in Andhra Pradesh. He was a pioneering industrialist in the Madras State.

Family

Ramakrishna was born in a Telugu-speaking family to Velagapudi Venkata Subbayya Choudary in 1896 in the village Bellamvaripalem in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, India. He studied at Oxford University and acquired B.Sc. and M.A. degrees. His father originally came from Tellapadu, Maddipadu Mandal, in Prakasam District.
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, is the current chairman and managing director of KCP Limited. His wife, Indira Dutt, is a daughter of the Raja of Muktyala and the President of the World Telugu Federation. 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, Tamil Nadu, a five-term Member of Parliament and a former Union minister in India.

Positions held