Tata Group (/ˈtɑːtɑː/) is an Indian multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata, the company gained international recognition after purchasing several global companies. One of India's largest conglomerates, Tata Group is owned by Tata Sons.^[3][4]

Each Tata company operates independently under the guidance and supervision of its own board of directors and shareholders. Significant Tata companies and subsidiaries include Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Advanced Systems Limited, Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Coffee, Tata Teleservices, Titan, Voltas, Tata Cliq, Tata Communications, and The Indian Hotels Company Limited (Taj Hotels), TATA Autocomp Systems Ltd.

At the age of 29, Jamsetji Tata worked in his father's company. In 1870 with Rs.21,000 capital, he found a trading company. Further he bought a bankrupt oil mill at Chinchpokli and converted it into a cotton mill, under the name Alexandra Mill which he sold in profit after 2 years. In 1874, he set up another cotton mill at Nagpur named as Empress Mill. He dreamed of achieving 4 goals, setting up an iron and steel company, a unique hotel, a world-class learning institution and a hydro-electric plant. During his lifetime, in 1903, the Taj Mahal Hotel at Colaba waterfront was opened making it the first hotel with electricity in India.

After Jamsetji's death, his older son Dorabji Tata became the Chairman in 1904. Sir Dorabji established the Tata Iron and Steel company (TISCO), now known as Tata Steel in 1907. Marking the group's global ambitions, Tata Limited opened its first overseas office in London. Following the founder's goals, Western India's first hydro plant was brought to life, giving birth to Tata Power. Yet another dream, Indian Institute of Science was established with the first batch admitted in 1911.

JRD Tata was made Chairman of Tata Group in 1938. Under his chairmanship, the assets of the Tata Group grew from US$100 million to over US$5 billion. Starting with 14 enterprises, upon his departure half a century later in 1988, Tata Sons had grown to a conglomerate of 95 enterprises. These enterprises consisted of ventures that the company had either started or in which they held controlling interest.

In 1952, JRD founded an airline, known as Tata Air Services (later renamed Tata Airlines). In 1953, the Government of India passed the Air Corporations Act and purchased a majority stake in the carrier from Tata Sons, though JRD Tata would continue as Chairman till 1977.

In 1945, Tata Motors was founded, first focused on locomotives. In 1954, it entered the commercial vehicle market after forming a joint venture with Daimler-Benz. In 1968, Tata Consultancy Services was founded.

In 1991, Ratan Tata was made Chairman of Tata Group. This was also the year of economic liberalization in India, opening up the market to foreign competitors. During this time, Tata Group began to acquire a number of companies, including Tetley (2000), Corus Group (2007), and Jaguar and Land Rover (2008). In 2017, Natarajan Chandrasekaran was appointed chairman.

The Chairman of Tata Sons is usually the Chairman of the Tata Group.

This section lists the Tata companies and details their business:

Chemicals

Consumer products

Energy

Engineering

Information systems and communications

Services

Steel

Acquisitions:

Tata Group has helped establish and finance numerous research, educational and cultural institutes in India,^[9][10] and received the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.^[11] Some of the institutes established by the Tata Group are:

In 2008, Tata Group donated US$50 million to Cornell University for "agricultural and nutrition programs in India and for the education of Indian students at Cornell."^[15]

In 2010, Tata Group donated ₹ 2.20 billion ($50 million) to the Harvard Business School (HBS) to build an academic and a residential building for executive education programmes on the institute's campus in Boston, Massachusetts, now Tata Hall,^[16] which is the largest endowment received by HBS from an international donor.

In 2017, Tata Football Academy won the bid to form the Jamshedpur FC, a football club based on Jamshedpur of Jharkhand in the 4th edition of the Indian Super League.

The Tata Group has also attracted some controversy during its more than 150 years in operation, notably:

The Kerala Government filed an affidavit in the high court alleging that Tata Tea had "grabbed" forest land of 3,000 acres (12 km2) at Munnar. The Tatas provided that they possessed 58,741.82 acres (237.7197 km2) of land, which they are allowed to retain under the Kannan Devan Hill (Resumption of Lands) Act, 1971, and there was a shortage of 278.23 hectares in that. The Chief Minister of Kerala V.S. Achuthanandan, who vowed to evict all on government land in Munnar, formed a special squad for the Munnar land takeover mission and started acquiring back properties. However, the mission was aborted due to both influential land-holders and opposition from Achuthanandan's own party.^[18]

On 2 January 2006, Kalinganagar, Odisha villagers protested the construction of a compound wall on land historically owned by them, for a Tata steel plant. Police opened fire at a crowd after a policeman was gruesomely killed by the mob.^[19]

In December 2006, Myanmar's chief of general staff, General Thura Shwe Mann, visited the Tata Motors plant in Pune.^[20] In 2009, TATA Motors announced that it would manufacture trucks in Myanmar. Tata Motors reported that these contracts to supply hardware and automobiles to Burma's military were subsequently criticised by human rights activists.^[21][22]

The Singur controversy^[23] in West Bengal was a series of protests by locals and political parties over the forced acquisition, eviction, and inadequate compensation to those farmers displaced for the Tata Nano plant, during which Mamata Banerjee's party was widely criticised as acting for political gain. Despite the support of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) state government, Tata eventually pulled the project out of West Bengal, citing safety concerns. Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, made land available for the Nano project.^[24]

On Aug 31, 2016, in a historic judgement, the Honorable Supreme Court of India set aside the land acquisition by the West Bengal Government in 2006 that had facilitated Tata Motors' Nano plant, stating that the West Bengal government had not taken possession of the land legally, and were now required to repossess and return it to local farmers within 12 weeks without compensation.^[25]

The Port of Dhamara has received significant coverage, sparking controversy in India, and in Tata's emerging global markets.^[26] The Dhamra port, an equal joint venture between Tata Steel and Larsen & Toubro, has been criticised for its proximity to the Gahirmatha Sanctuary and Bhitarkanika National Park by Indian and international organisations, including Greenpeace; Gahirmatha Beach is one of the world's largest mass nesting sites for the Olive Ridley Turtle, and India's second largest mangrove forest, Bhitarkanika, is a designated Ramsar site, and critics claimed that the port could disrupt mass nesting at Gahirmtha beaches as well as the ecology of the Bitharkanika mangrove forest.^[27][28] TATA Steel employed mitigation measures set by the project's official advisor, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the company pledging to "adopt all its recommendations without exception" when conservation organisations asserted that a thorough environmental impact analysis had not been done for the project, which had undergone changes in size and specifications since it was first proposed.^[29]

In 2007, Tata Group joined forces with a Tanzanian company to build a soda ash extraction plant in Tanzania.^[30] Environmental activists oppose the plant because it would be near Lake Natron, and it has a very high chance of affecting the lake's ecosystem and its neighbouring dwellers,^[31] jeopardising endangered Lesser Flamingo birds. Lake Natron is where two-thirds of Lesser Flamingos reproduce.^[32] Producing soda ash involves drawing out salt water from the lake, and then disposing the water back to the lake. This process could interrupt the chemical makeup of the lake.^[30] 22 African nations signed a petition to stop its construction.^[30]

In April 2016, a U.S. Federal Grand Jury awarded Epic Systems a $940 million judgement against Tata Consultancy Services and Tata America International Corp. Filed 31 October 2014; the suit charged that "6,477 unauthorized downloads could be used to enhance Tata's competing product, Med Mantra."^[33][34][35] In 2017, U.S. District Court Judge William Conley reduced the Award to $420 million; the company states that the judgement is also being appealed, as "not supported by evidence presented during the trial and a strong appeal can be made to superior court to fully set aside the jury verdict.”^[36]

In July 2018, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which "adjudicates issues relating to Indian companies,"^[37] issued a verdict in the company's favor on charges of mismanagement leveled in 2016 by ousted chairman, Cyrus Mistry.^[38]

On 16 June 2016, an electrical short-circuit sparked a fire at Tata Group corporate headquarters in Mumbai. Owing to quick containment, no casualties were reported.^[39]