Bl Munjal Is E & Y & #8217;S Entrepreneur Of The Year

The promoter-chairman of Hero Honda, Brijmohan Lall Munjal, was today awarded the Ernst & Young (E&Y) Entrepre- neur Of The Year (EOY) award for 2001.

Munjal, who will now attend the E&Y International Entrepre- neurship Conference at Palm Springs, California in November, will also represent India at the World Entrepreneur of the Year Contest at Monte Carlo, Monaco in 2002.

The award to Munjal celebrates a saga of the creation of a Rs 6,000 crore two-wheeler giant which began almost 50 years ago when he started manufacturing bicycle components for local and export markets.

Minister for information and broadcasting Sushma Swaraj and a host of industrialists and government officials were present at the glittering awards ceremony in Mumbai.

Ekta Kapoor, creative director of Balaji Telefilms, became the first woman entrepreneur to receive the coveted E&Y Start-up Entrepreneur Of The Year award in India.

The Manager Entrepreneur Of The Year was Yogesh Deveshwar, chairman of tobacco major ITC.

Jamshed J Irani, former managing director of Tata Steel, received a lifetime achievement award, while the four industry-category awards went to Suresh Krishna of Sundaram Fasteners (manufacturing), Prathap C Reddy of Apollo Hospitals (services), Jerry Rao of Mphasis BFL (information technology, communications and entertainment) and Anji Reddy of Dr Reddy's Laboratories (healthcare and life sciences).

The recipients were selected by a six-member jury, headed by two-wheeler tycoon Rahul Bajaj.

"The EOY Award programme not only discovers entrepreneurial talents in the country and celebrates their success, but also offers a tremendous boost to nascent entrepreneurial activities. More entrepreneurs mean more employment, and the multiplier effect fosters more initiatives. This fuels creation of wealth and ensures economic growth," said Kashi N Memani, chairman of Ernst & Young.

Some of the past recipients of the award are Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Petroleum, Wipro's Azim Premji, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Michael Dell of Dell Computers, Howard Schultz of Starbucks Coffee, Jerry Yang of Yahoo and Scott Kriens of Juniper Networks.

The Ernst & Young EOY Programme is a national and international annual awards programme that was first established in the United States in 1986 and is now conducted in over 20 countries. The programme was unveiled in India in 1999.