Kasturchand Daga

Diwan Bahadur Sir Seth Kasturchand Daga, KCIE (1855-1917) was a businessman, landlord, philanthropist, and a pioneer who had conceptualised and implemented the hub-and-spoke model of trade. He was from Nagpur. He was made Knight Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire by King George V at the 1911 Delhi Durbar Honours.

Kasturchand started his entrepreneurial and banking journey from Nagpur and expanded his banking business from Lahore (now in Pakistan) to Yangon (then in Burma), with transactions extending up to Europe. Sir Kasturchand Daga died on 21 January 1917.

Philanthropy The Kasturchand Park in Nagpur is named after him. He had organized Nagpur's second industrial exhibition in the park by depositing Rs 25,000 on November 12, 1908. Daga was a philanthropist and had constructed works of Public utility such as tanks, wells, schools, hospitals, Dharmshalas and markets. He established Daga Hospital in Nagpur, which is now under the Nagpur Municipal Corporation.

The land for Kasturchand Park was also donated by him. Lady Amritbai Daga College, a women's college, located in Nagpur, which was named after his wife, Amritbai Daga, was one of his contributions at the time when women's education was the last priorities in the society.

Honours and titles He received the title of Rai Bahadur from Bikaner State in 1880; Rai Bahadur from British Government in 1887; Dewan Bahadur in 1903.

The Bishop Cotton School completed 50 years in 1913 and its week-long celebrations were inaugurated at the ‘Diwan Kasturchand's Pavilion Ground’. It was shortened to "Kasturchand Ground" a name that has stayed with it to date, giving rise to the myth that the land was donated by Diwan Kasturchand Daga.

Kasturchand Daga was knighted in 1911 and he died in 1917. In 1920 his business partner and friend Manekji Dadabhai erected a statue of Sir Daga in the north-east corner of this ground. But the ground has belonged to the government military or civil since 1818 and will always belong to it.