Last week, Indian Forests Minister Babbanrao Pachpute inaugurated the new plant of her company Kamani Tubes in Wada, around 75 km from Mumbai.

For the 48-year-old Saroj, it was a dream come true. Standing outside the factory premises with her husband Shubhkaran, pilot son Amar, 24, and daughter Seema, 22, she smiled radiantly — and remembered her painful past.

"Born in a poor Dalit family, I was married off forcibly at the age of 12 to a man more than 10 years older to me," Saroj told IANS. "A year later, I came back to my parents’ home. The following year, I tried to join the police force like my father, but I was rejected."

Dalit is a self-designation for a South Asian group of people traditionally regarded as untouchables (outcastes).

Her attempts to rebuild her broken life were thwarted by other residents of her village of Roparkheda in Maharashtra’s Akola district. They accused her of "overstepping social norms and boundaries." She bore the insults for 10 years before leaving the rural slum in which her family stayed to come to Mumbai.

Saroj met a man and married him, but he died in 1989, leaving her to fend for their two minor children.

Undeterred, she began managing her husband’s small steel plant, launched a construction company and with the realty sector booming, made profits. She ploughed this money into small steel and sugar units.

Her biggest challenge came in March 2006 when her firm, Kalpana Saroj and Associates, took over the ailing Kamani Tubes and turned it around to a profitable enterprise while boosting employee morale.

"I was born, grew up and lived in poverty for the first two decades of my life. I know what a worker undergoes when salaries are not paid on time - the bills, the creditors, the fees and other expenses. So it was very important for me to gain my workers’ confidence," Saroj said.

Owing to disputes over the ownership of the 1.8 acre property in Kurla, Saroj withdrew from a long court battle and began scouting for another location outside Mumbai.

Her next targets are increasing production, diversifying to manufacturing 100 different alloys, and catering to defence and communications requirements.