PPG: A visionary who loved technology and art

BANGALORE, INDIA: He was a man of great vision and one of the old stalwarts of the IT Industry. Dr PP Gupta, or PPG as he was fondly called, was the man who gave CMC Limited, a leading IT solutions company and a subsidiary of Tata Consultancy Services, a new direction in its early days and made the company think of becoming a global player.

And that is why his passing away on Sunday, July 5 is considered a major loss for the Indian IT industry at large.

CMC remembers him as “the first to have the vision of stepping into the international market and acquired a Delaware Company in USA, Baton Rouge International (now known as CMC Americas, Inc.). He brought the shift from just infrastructure maintenance to all verticals in the IT solutions area”.

Born on July 16, 1934, PPG was initially appointed the managing director of CMC on October 6, 1976. He remained with the company till December 31, 1981 and later in 1984, the Government of India once again appointed him the chairman and managing director of the company, a position he held till his superannuation on July 31, 1992.

It was during his tenure that CMC started the R&D Centre in Hyderabad from where some of CMC’s greatest solutions and products emerged. A man who was ahead of the time, he knew great need for R&D in the IT sector.

Satish Khosla, an industry veteran and senior IT consultant, remembers PPG as a wonderful and farsighted person.

"I had met him on many occasions when he was the MD of CMC. He was a wonderful and farsighted person, who had always been helpful," remembers Khosla.

"IT came first and foremost for him. An enlightened person, he was one of the finest gentlemen I had ever seen and his death is a major loss to the industry and it is also a personal loss for me."

With PPG at the helm, CMC implemented many projects of national importance including IMPRESS (Railway Passenger Reservation System) in 1985, MACH (Marine and Container Handling System) at JNPT, Mumbai, in 1989, Super Computing Facility at National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting for Department of Science and Technology in 1989. During his time CMC also developed its own wide area network called INDONET, in 1986, again a pioneering effort.

A visionary with an attitude towards technology, he was also a connoisseur of art and initiated a good collection of art in the organization, apart from holding art camps at various CMC locations, where renowned artists were invited to participate as well as conduct them.