The Ledger · families
The Marwari Business Families of Calcutta
Families a published source places in Calcutta, listed alphabetically. Seed content — AI-drafted prose, to be replaced by the maintainer. Citations are real.
Six Marwari business families are recorded by published sources as establishing themselves in Calcutta: the Birlas, Ganeriwalas, Goenkas, Poddars, Sarafs and Singhanias.
- 1
The cited academic source records that the Birlas started as brokers in the Calcutta office of Tarachand Ghanshyamdas.
- 2
The cited source records a branch of the family migrating to Calcutta from Ratangarh.
- 3
Business Standard records that once the Goenkas bought land in Alipore, the rest of the Marwari community followed them south.
- 4
Founders of Tarachand Ghanshyamdas of Ramgarh, which the cited source calls the largest of the great Marwari firms in India between 1860 and 1914.
- 5
Forbes India calls Nathuram Saraf one of the first Marwaris to migrate to Kolkata, and credits him with the basa system that housed those who came after.
- 6
Founders of Sevaram Ramrikhadas, one of the great firms the cited source credits with enabling the migration; the same source records the family's clan deities being moved to a family temple in Calcutta.