Pushing For Design Awareness
Rajshree Pathy, Chairman, Rajshree Sugars and Chemicals took charge of the company after her father G. Vardaraj’s death in the early 1990s. Vardaraj, who set up the company was not only an industrialist and philanthropist but also a member of Parliament.
Naturally, the spotlight was on Pathy when she took over the company nearly 30 years ago. She entered the family business and had to run several educational and philanthropic institutions scattered across southern India. Back then, it was not very common for women to take over the corner office. Her immediate task was to ensure that the sugar mill, which her father started building, was completed.
After successfully building Rajshree Sugars all by herself, Pathy ventured into other sectors. Under her leadership, the company forayed into new areas like health, agriculture, energy and hospitality among others. She is also the first woman to become the president of the Indian Sugar Mills Association in 2004-05.
Pathy, who was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2013, however, never let her passion for art and design die. Today she is making news in the field of design. For Pathy, design is a way of thinking. Her life has been a perfect combination of the corporate world and creativity. On several occasions, Pathy has said that she laid great emphasis on natural air and light while designing her own home.
In 2012, she along with her daughter Aishwarya, founded the India Design Forum (IDF) with a view to creating awareness and an appropriate environment for design. Pathy has always underlined the importance of aesthetics and functional existence through design. She has said in many fora that design is not understood well by Indians.
Pathy, who hails from Coimbatore, has also maintained that there is a need for any more design schools in the country. She strongly feels that the government should allocate more funds for developing design. Besides, appropriate infrastructure along with incubation centres must be developed to give a push to this field.
