Revered as the ‘TV man of India’ for manufacturing low-cost radio and TV sets and taking them to Indian households in the 1980s, Raja Singh, the founder of electronics brand Texla, passed away in Ludhiana on February 28. He was 90.“Our father…passed away at Ludhiana’s DMCH on February 28, after battling old-age related issues for some time,” Raja Singh’s eldest son, Kawaljit Singh Oberoi, told The Indian Express.In the 1980s and 90s, when the country witnessed a cable TV boom, Texla was India’s most iconic TV set brand. Their TVs became a defining feature of living rooms, especially in Delhi and Punjab, as the brand offered budget-friendly, low-cost televisions for middle-class families, making accessible a device once considered a luxury.Before TVs, Raja Singh’s company, Jupiter Radios, used to manufacture low-cost radios and transistors in 1961. “From the late 1980s to early 2000s, Texla occupied 95 per cent of the TV set market share in Punjab. Almost every household in Punjab had a Texla TV. My father never had any formal education; it was his sheer hard work and determination that, after surviving Partition as a little boy, he made radio and TV reach the common masses in India,” says Kawaljit, who resides in Ludhiana. His two other brothers, Inderjit Singh Oberoi and Sukhwinder Singh Oberoi, run the family business in Dehradun.After Texla, Raja Singh also introduced several other TV brands, including Beltek and Bestavision, which also went on to become household names. He laid the foundation of TV manufacturing units in Ludhiana by installing a picture tube unit in the industrial city.A man who never looked backThe story of Raja Singh, who was born on February 19, 1936, at Hillan village in Mirpur near Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan), is a textbook example of how a little boy with no formal education went on to launch one of the highest selling TV brands in the country, and emerged as a doyen in the electronics industry without any formal training in the sector.He was just 11 years of age when the Partition in 1947 forced him to migrate to India. Despite having no formal education or schooling, Raja Singh founded Jupiter Radios in 1961. The firm started manufacturing low-cost radio and transistor sets, and soon touched record sales of 1.50 lakh radio sets per annum.Story continues below this adTexla entered the TV market in 1972 with the humble beginning of 2,500 sets in the first year of production. There was no looking back. By 1988-89, Texla manufactured 3 lakh black and white (B&W) and colour TV sets per annum. The first of two units of Jupiter Radios was located in Delhi, with an installed capacity of 50,000 colour sets per annum, besides B&W.In 1979, Raja Singh established Rajkamal Industries in Delhi to manufacture wooden cabinets for televisions. In 1982, Texla launched its colour TV range with an installed production of 50,000 sets per annum at its Delhi unit. A year later, Texla brought TV within the reach of the masses by introducing its low-budget B&W portable TV sets.The growing demand for TV sets led to the establishment of another unit in Ludhiana with a capacity of 2 lakh sets per annum. In 1986, the company diversified into the manufacturing of B&W picture tubes with the establishment of Mullard Tubes Ltd in Nandpur, Ludhiana.In 1987, the TV boom only continued. Another firm owned by Raja Singh, Bestavision Electronics, started manufacturing TVs in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, with a capacity of 50,000 sets per annum. In 1988, Bestavision established its second unit in Patna, Bihar.Story continues below this adIn 1989, Texla won the ‘National Productivity Award for Best Productivity Performance in Consumer Electronics in 1987-88’ when the company touched the milestone of producing 3 lakh TV sets per annum.Gurbani telecast, educational institutesEven as Raja Singh himself never had any formal education, he forayed into the education sector with an aim to impart education to the underprivileged. He also started a common platform for Gurbani (teachings of Sri Guru Granth Sahib) to reach the masses. “Every organisation has a commitment to the society within which it prospers,” he had said.As Texla gained ground, Raja Singh entered philanthropy. He founded ‘Sarab Sanjhi Gurbani’, a unit that manufactured audio-video cassettes promoting Gurbani. Besides presenting and telecasting devotional music programmes on popular radio and TV channels, this service-oriented enterprise also printed and distributed posters, booklets, etc., to spread the Guru’s teachings.He also founded Guru Ram Das Charitable Trust, which runs educational institutions, including schools and colleges in Dehradun and Ludhiana, including GRD Academy CBSE schools in Ludhiana (1) and Dehradun (4), and GRD Institute of Management and Technology (GRD IMT) in Dehradun.Story continues below this adThe family later also entered the hospitality sector and owns Nirvana Luxury Hotel in Ludhiana, and plastic goods manufacturing with the firm Texla Plastics and Metals based in Kanganwal, Ludhiana.Raja Singh is also hailed for helping anti-Sikh riots victims in 1984 by providing jobs and livelihood opportunities in his companies. “My father himself had suffered so much during Partition that during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, he gave jobs to the survivors,” says Kawaljit.The company continues to run a TV production unit in Noida of Uttar Pradesh, says Kawaljit, adding that now they are more into manufacturing road safety furniture under the brand name ‘Dark Eye’, moulds and dyes under a plastics unit, and the education and hospitality sectors.Raja Singh’s prayer meet will be held at GRD Academy, Ludhiana, on March 5 at 12.30 pm.