Karumuttu Thiagarajan passes away

Chennai, Jan 19 (UNI) Karumuttu M Thiagarajan, former Chairman of Bank of Madura and founder Chairman of Microcredit Foundation of India has died following a brief illness.

He was 62. He is survived by his wife Deborah Thiagarajan and three daughters.

Thiagarajan, who fell ill after he suffered a stroke aboutthree years ago, died at a private hospital at suburban Porur last night.

Family sources said the body, now being kept at the hospital, would be brought to his residence tomorrow. The cremation would take place on January 21 after the arrival of two of his daughters from the United States of America, the sources added.

Hailing from the illustrious Karumuttu Thiagaraja Chettiar family in Madurai, Thiagarajan completed his MBA and Ph.D at the University of Pittsburgh.

After the studies, he had joined the Graduate School of Management, University of Rochester, as an Assistant Professor. On his return to India, he was Consultant to several leading companies, including IBM India, the State Bank of India (SBI) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).

In 1973, Thiagarajan joined the family business of textiles and became the Managing Director of Loyal Textile Mills Limited. In 1993, he took charge of Bank of Madura and became its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

As Chairman of the bank, he had initiated large-scale micro credit programme through the formation of self help groups and his interest in microcredit led to the formation of Microcredit Foundation of India in 2003.

Known as ''Raj'' in his friends' cricle, Thiagarjan, an amateur sculptor himself, showed tremendous interest in sculpture and literature. He loved enjoying discussing Tamil literary masterpieces, particularly, Silapadhikaram.

UNI