Kolkata:Ganga Prasad Birla, former head of the GP-CK Birla group of companies, died in Kolkata on Friday after a prolonged illness. He was 88, and is survived by his wife Nirmala Birla, daughter Lekha Poddar and son Chandra Kant Birla, who now heads the GP-CK Birla group.
G.P. Birla, who was born in Varanasi in 1922, founded companies such as Hyderabad Industries Ltd and Orient Paper and Industries Ltd, and many academic institutions such as Birla Institute of Technology, Birla Archaeological and Cultural Research Institute, Modern High School for Girls, Kolkata, and hospitals such as BM Birla Heart Research Institute (which is named after his father) and Calcutta Medical Research Institute.