Who was FC Kohli, ‘father of Indian IT industry’ who passed away at 96?

Faqir Chand Kohli, the founding CEO of TCS who was often called the ‘Father of the Indian software industry’, passed away at the age of 96 on Thursday, Nov 26

He was actively involved in the decision to bring IBM to India as part of Tata-IBM in 1991. A Padma Bhushan awardee, he also served as chairman of NASSCOM in the 1990s.

Popularly known as FC Kohli, the industrialist was born in Peshawar on March 19, 1924 and completed his primary and college-level education in Pakistan.

He went to Queen’s University, Canada and completed his BSc (Hons) in Electrical Engineering in 1948. He then worked for a year at the Canadian General Electric Company and subsequently did his MS in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1950.

Kohli returned to India in 1951 and joined Tata Electric Companies and rose to become its Director in 1970.In September 1969, he became the general manager of Tata Consultancy Services.

In 1974, he was made the director-in-charge and in 1994 deputy chairman of TCS. TCS was established in 1968 with its headquarters in Mumbai and F C Kohli was appointed as the first CEO. He was president of NASSCOM for 1995–96.

He retired in 1999 at the age of 75. He was felicitated with the Dadabhai Naoroji Memorial award in 2000 for his contribution to India’s software industry.