Jaiprakash Gaur’s lifetime of building has ended in a legacy of bankruptcy

Instead, he now watches his empire in ruins, his reputation in tatters. The man once celebrated as a builder could only stand by as the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted his flagship, Jaiprakash Associates Ltd, into insolvency.

Weighed down by his group’s staggering ₹57,000 crore debt, accumulated over decades of ambition that produced expressways, dams, cement plants, and townships, Gaur faces the ultimate indignity of an entrepreneur: his life’s work auctioned off.

Rags to riches

It had not always been this way. Born in 1931 in a small village in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, Gaur came of age in a newly independent India. After studying civil engineering at Thompson College in Roorkee (now IIT Roorkee), he joined the Uttar Pradesh Irrigation and Water Resources Department, where he designed canals and oversaw dam projects. Watching inefficiency and delay up close, he became convinced that private enterprise could do better.

In 1958, at the age of 27, he quit his government job and became a civil contractor.

Entrepreneurship in 1960s India was a lonely pursuit with licences choking initiative and capital a scarce commodity. Gaur started with small road and irrigation contracts in Rajasthan, but over the next two decades, with complex, long-gestation hydropower projects such as the Tehri Dam and the Vishnuprayag Hydel Project, he had built enough of a reputation to formalize his operations as Jaiprakash Associates.

Liberalization in 1991 transformed his fortunes. As India sought private partners to build roads, power plants, and cities, Jaiprakash Associates expanded rapidly into the cement, real estate, and construction sectors. In 2003 came the breakthrough: the 165-kilometre Yamuna Expressway between Noida and Agra, bundled with thousands of acres of real estate development rights.

Gaur envisioned townships, offices, even a Formula One racetrack. The group surged into a diversified conglomerate spanning cement, hydropower, hospitality, and real estate, with revenues topping ₹20,000 crore.

However, the growth was achieved on unsustainable leverage. Like many infrastructure firms of the era, Jaiprakash Associates borrowed heavily with plans to repay through asset sales or future cash flows. It worked when India grew at 8-9%.

Downward spiral

Slowing growth, delayed projects, regulatory and clearance issues, changing real estate market cycles, and shifts in the financing environment brought grief for many Indian businesses, particularly in areas with long payback cycles. Companies like Lanco Infratech Ltd, which had grown from a regional player to India's largest private power producer by 2011, followed similar paths to bankruptcy.

For Gaur, the reckoning came more slowly. The Yamuna Expressway opened in 2012, but the real estate boom that he banked on fizzled as Noida’s once-hot property market stagnated. The much-touted Formula One racetrack, inaugurated in 2011, hosted only three races before tax disputes drove the sport out of the country. Meanwhile, debt payments mounted. The company began selling assets, including cement plants and grinding units to Shree Cement Ltd and UltraTech Cement Ltd, as well as hydropower projects to JSW Energy Ltd. Yet the debt barely came down.

The downfall was gradual but brutal as courts froze assets and banks came calling. In June 2024, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India filed insolvency petitions. The NCLT admitted the case, appointing a resolution professional to oversee what remained. The company that Gaur had spent six decades building was declared bankrupt.

Ironically, the Noida real estate that dragged Jaiprakash Associates down is now booming. The upcoming Jewar Airport, officially Noida International Airport, has ignited a surge in property prices along the Yamuna Expressway. The very inventory that once crushed Gaur’s balance sheet could be worth much more.

Gaur himself had stepped back from daily operations long before the collapse. In 2010, at 79, he handed over the reins of the group to his elder son, Manoj Gaur, moving into the role of chairman emeritus. The transition was meant to ensure continuity as the company expanded into newer businesses. Instead, Manoj now faces the Enforcement Directorate’s scrutiny over alleged financial irregularities linked to stalled real estate projects.

In October, creditors accepted Adani Enterprises’ bid for Jaiprakash Associates’ assets. For Gaur, it was a bitter end as the vast empire he built passed to new owners, while his legacy is relegated to footnotes in business histories.

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