Khushi Ram and Bihari Lal are two brothers who found the popular rice brand, India Gate Basmati rice. Khushi Ram and Bihari Lal used to run a small firm in the small city of Lyallpur (Now Faisalabad, Pakistan). The brother duo used to buy cotton from the farmers of Punjab and sold it to cotton mills in Bombay.
Their business started to grow and the brothers decided to set up their cotton mills and some textile mills. With time, they even began to buy wheat from farmers in Punjab and sold it to British agencies. When partition was announced, Khushi Ram and Bihari Lal's business was forced to shut and they had to move from Pakistan leaving everything behind.
Khushi Ram and Behari Lal along with their families fled to India on a Dakota 32 plane, a chartered plane that charged Rs 4000 at that time. The family already has a house in Naya Bazar of Delhi's Chandani Chowk.
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In Chandani Chowk, Khushi Ram and Behari Lal pushed the restart button and started to work as trade agents of rice and oil in the city. Their company began to grow and by 1985 the rice was being sold in its name. The first unit of KRBL was set up in Ghaziabad, UP. Eventually, it went on to become the first Indian rice company to receive foreign investment.
Today, Anil K Mittal is the chairman and managing director of KRBL, India's top rice exporter. KRBL is the maker of the popular India Gate basmati rice. As per Hurun India, the valuation of the company stands at Rs 9,398 crore as of 2022.
