A boy who dropped out of school in the third grade grew up to build India’s first electric motor. Newspapers later called him the country’s own Thomas Edison.
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Indian Economy · IndEco0196
G.D. Naidu
The Self-Taught Mechanic Who Became the “Edison of India”
1920
Founds Universal Motor Service (UMS), running buses between Pollachi and Palani.
1936
A UMS-made razor wins third prize at an exhibition in Leipzig, Germany.
1937
National Electric Works builds India’s first indigenous electric motor.
1945
Helps establish Arthur Hope Polytechnic in Coimbatore — India’s first polytechnic college.
A Third-Standard Dropout Built the Motor
Naidu never finished the third standard. Seventeen years after starting a small bus service, his own factory rolled out the electric motor that powered India’s workshops.
Must Know
- Gopalaswamy Doraiswamy Naidu was born on 23 March 1893, in Kalangal, near Coimbatore, in present-day Tamil Nadu.
- He dropped out of school in the third standard. He was almost entirely self-taught in mechanical and electrical engineering.
- In 1920, he founded Universal Motor Service (UMS), running buses between Pollachi and Palani. By 1933, UMS operated 280 buses, then the country’s largest private fleet.
- In 1937, his company National Electric Works built India’s first indigenous electric motor.
- He became known as the “Edison of India,” for a long stream of practical inventions across mechanical, electrical, and agricultural engineering.
Good to Know
- In 1936, a UMS-made razor won third prize at an industrial exhibition in Leipzig, Germany.
- During that same visit, Naidu met the German dictator Adolf Hitler.
- His inventions included the “Rasant” electric razor, launched in 1937, and five-valve radio sets, launched in 1941.
- In 1952, he built a prototype two-seater petrol car, priced at about ₹2,000.
- In 1945, he helped establish Arthur Hope Polytechnic in Coimbatore, India’s first polytechnic college. He served as its first principal.
- In 1946, he founded the Industrial Labour Welfare Association, for the welfare of his own factory workers.
Test Yourself
Great to Know
- Naidu retired from active business in 1944. He devoted much of his later life to philanthropy and worker welfare.
- Naidu’s engineering ventures helped make Coimbatore into the “Pump City” of India, today the source of roughly 40% of the country’s pumps and motors. See IndGeo0010 — Industrial Regions of India for the full picture.
- In 1967, a permanent exhibition of his inventions, the G.D. Naidu Industrial Exhibition, opened in Coimbatore. It still operates today.
- A documentary on his life, “GD Naidu — The Edison of India,” won the Best Science and Technology Film award, at the 66th National Film Awards.
- In October 2025, Tamil Nadu named a new 10-km elevated flyover in Coimbatore after him. At about ₹1,791 crore, it is the state’s longest, and among the longest in India.
- Naidu died on 4 January 1974, in Coimbatore, at the age of 80.
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