Sunil Mittal (English: Sunil Mittal; born: October 23, 1957, Ludhiana) is an Indian industrialist, social worker and chairman of India’s largest telecom company Airtel. His name is counted among the few telecom entrepreneurs in the world. Sunil’s company Bharti Airtel is one of the largest telephone companies in the world, whose business is spread in about 19 countries. Airtel provides GSM mobile services as well as internet broadband services and has around 20 crore customers. Sunil has achieved this success due to his hard work, true dedication and vision.
Sunil was born in 1957 in Ludhiana district of Punjab. His father Satpal Mittal was a politician and had been an MP from the Lok Sabha twice and from the Rajya Sabha once. He received his early education from Winberg Allen School, Mussoorie and later from Scindia School, Gwalior. In the year 1976, he obtained his bachelor’s degree from Punjab University. Sunil says that in his childhood he had no special interest in studies and he wanted to establish his own business.
Sunil started his business at the age of just 18. Along with his friends, he started a small bicycle business with just Rs 20,000 and first started making bicycle parts for Brajmohan Munjal’s Hero Cycle Company. After this, he felt that this business could not be very big and along with his brothers, he established ‘Bharti Overseas Trading Company’. He sold his bicycle and other businesses and moved to Mumbai. In the year 1981, he purchased “Import License” from the exporters of Punjab and then started selling portable generators imported from Japan. This business gave him a lot of experience in marketing and sales of goods. Gradually this business also got established and everything started going well but a policy change of the government stopped his business overnight. This was the era of license-raj and the government banned the import of generators, because two Indian companies were given licenses to manufacture generators in the country.
Main article: Sunil Mittal received awards and honors
2007: Government of India honored him with Padma Bhushan. He was honored with the “Transforming India Leader” award under the NDTV Business Leader Awards. He was also honored with the GSMA President’s Award.
