K. Anji Reddy

Kallam Anji Reddy (1941-2013) was the pharmaceutical entrepreneur who founded Dr. Reddy's Laboratories in 1984 and, twelve years later, Dr. Reddy's Foundation, an early example in India of a company founder building a full-scale development organisation rather than a grant-making trust.

Reddy took a first degree from A. C. College in Guntur, a degree in pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals from what is now the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune in 1969. He set up the Foundation in 1996 as a way of returning something to society, and its programmes moved steadily from neighbourhood improvement towards employability. Early work included a neighbourhood development programme from 1997 covering street improvement and waste management, and the Child and Police project from 1998, which reached more than 5,000 children.

The initiative most closely identified with him was the Livelihood Advancement Business School, launched in 2000, which trained unemployed young people from poor households in job-ready skills and placed them in work; by 2005 it was running in nineteen states. He also founded schools bearing his name, the Kallam Anji Reddy Vidyalaya in 2001 and a vocational junior college in 2003, and in 2010 the training model was extended to people with disabilities. After his death the Foundation replaced the school with the broader GROW employability programme in 2016 and added work in healthcare skilling, scholarships, agricultural extension and climate action. He was also a founder of the Naandi Foundation, a separate Hyderabad development organisation.

The Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 2001 and the Padma Bhushan in 2011. He served on the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry.[3][4]