Satyanarayan Nuwal
The founder of Nagpur's Solar Group, India's largest maker of industrial explosives, honoured with the Padma Shri in 2026.
Satyanarayan Nuwal started out in the explosives supply trade after a failed first business, and built one of India’s biggest industrial and defence manufacturers. In 2026 he was named for the Padma Shri in the field of trade and industry, from Maharashtra [1].
A fresh start
Nuwal was born in Bhilwara on 25 July 1952 [2]. After finishing school in 1967 he spent a year at the Vedamata Gayatri Ashram in Mathura [2]. His first business failed and left him in severe hardship [2]. Looking for work, he moved to Ballarshah in Maharashtra, where he entered the explosives supply trade in 1979 [2]. In 1984 ICI made him its consignment agent, and he soon became the country’s largest explosives dealer [2].
Solar Group
In 1995 he set up the Solar Group’s first factory, as a small-scale unit [2]. Over 25 years it became India’s largest maker and exporter of industrial explosives, with more than 10,000 employees and exports to over 82 countries [2].
From 2010 the group moved into defence manufacturing through what is now Solar Defence and Aerospace [2]. It set up a large plant in Nagpur for the high explosive HMX, which India had previously imported, and now makes rockets, grenades and drones [2]. It developed the Nagastra loitering munition supplied to the Indian Army [2]. About a quarter of the group’s workers are women [2].
Nuwal chairs Ramdeobaba University and Madhav Netralaya in Nagpur [2].
Sources
- [1] Padma Awards 2026: list of awardees — Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Accessed 11 October 2026.
- [2] Padma Awards 2026 investiture ceremony brochure: citation for Satyanarayan Nuwal — Press Information Bureau, Government of India. Accessed 12 October 2026.
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