The Dalmia Companies came into existence in the early 1930s as the Dalmia-Jain Group. Founded by the late Ramkrishna Dalmia, the group's activities included Banks and Insurance Companies, Newspapers and Publishing Houses, Aviation and Railway Companies, Electric Supply Companies, Collieries, a Motor Car Company, Biscuits, Cement, Chemicals, Distilleries, Dairy Products, Jute, Paper, Plywood, Paints, Refractories, Sugar, Textiles and others.
The Group's greatest contribution to national development was in the emergence of the Indian cement industry. Entering this area in 1936 as a challenge to the monopoly of one powerful combine, the ACC Ltd., the Group set up several cement factories. Reflecting the geographic expansion of the group and its presence in each corner of the country, cement factories were set up in Dalmianagar (Bihar, East India), Dalmia Dadri (Haryana, North India), Dandot (West Punjab, now in Central Pakistan), Dalmiapuram (Tamil Nadu, South India), Karachi (Sind, now in South Pakistan), Rajgangpur (Orissa, East India) and Sawai Madhopur (Rajasthan, North India).
In 1943, the Group established the Bharat Bank Ltd., which on the basis of authorised capital, became the biggest bank of its time. Later it acquired controlling interests in the Punjab National Bank and in the Times of India group of publications. At the time, the Dalmia companies together ranked third among India's major industrial groups after the Tatas and the Birlas. In the automotive sphere, one company of the Group, Allen Berry & Co. Limited, purchased the entire lot of American surplus disposal vehicles, numbering about 50,000, after World War II. This company ran vast workshops in various parts of India till the 1950s when it was disbanded.
Today, the Dalmia family and its relatives have interests, among others, in publishing, explosives, cement, magnesite, consumer electronics, sugar, olive oil, leisure resorts and hotels, refractories, castings, cigarettes, soda ash, textiles and services such as advertising, travel management, television programming, software development and finance.
