Jaiprakash Gaur born in Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...

 is an Indian

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 entrepreneur and businessman. Gaur is the founder chairman of Jaiprakash Associates and Jaypee Group

Jaypee Group

The Jaypee Group is an Indian conglomerate based in Noida, India. It was founded by Jaiprakash Gaur which is involved in well diversified infrastructure conglomerate with business interests in Engineering & Construction, Power, Cement, Real Estate, Hospitality, Expressways, Sports & Education...

 of companies. Gaur has been associated with the construction

Construction

In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...

 industry for more than five decades.

Early Life and Education

Gaur graduated from University of Roorkee (now Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee

Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee

The Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee , formerly the University of Roorkee, is a public university located in Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India...

) in 1950 with a degree in civil engineering .

Career

After his graduation from IIT Roorkee, Gaur joined state government's irrigation department as a junior engineer. In 1958 he started his own venture as a civil contractor and two decades later, laid the foundation for the Jaypee Group by setting up Jaiprakash Associates, a civil engineering and construction company. Gaur stepped down from the company board in October 2010.
In 2010 he was ranked by Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

magazine as the 48th-richest person in India, with an estimated wealth of US$1.5 billion.

Awards and honors

For his contribution to infrastructure and construction sector Gaur was awarded Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 of the Year by Ernst & Young

Ernst & Young

Ernst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....

in 2008.