# Ghulam Faruque Khan

Ghulam Faruque Khan HPk, CIE, OBE (7 October 1899 – 29 April 1992) was a Pakistani politician and businessman who was the founder of Ghulam Faruque Group.
As a politician, he became Governor of East Pakistan and Federal Minister for Commerce, Science and Technology where he served from 1964 to 1967. He was also member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977 and member of the Senate of Pakistan from 1985 to 1991 and again from 1991 until his death. He was also the founder of Pakistani conglomerate Ghulam Faruque Group.

## Early life and education

Ghulam Faruque Khan was born on October 7, 1899, in Midnapore. He was the son of Khan Mir Aslam Khan Khattak (1841–1922), a landlord, social worker, civil contractor and Muslim leader of Nagpur who donated huge amount of money to Muslims education and always stood for the rights of Muslims. Mir Aslam Khan was a Pashtun of the Akor Khel Khattak tribe and was born in the house of Nawab Khan Khattak. His father was Rasual Khan Khattak of Shaidu Khan Khel, which is a village in Nowshera tehsil, Peshawar District of British India (now in Nowshera District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, in Pakistan). Shaidu is home to the Akor Khel, ruling khel of the Khattak tribe, as well as to the Mohallah Khan Khel (Khel stands for a family or descendants) clan who came here when two sons of Khushal Khan Khattak, named Shahbaz Khan Khattak and Abdul Qadir Khan Khattak, came from Akora Khattak to Shaidu. The two larger groups of Khan Khel descend from the brothers. The Akor Khels, a clan named after Akoray, still hold a prominent position in the Khattak tribe.
He received his education from Aligarh Mohamedan Anglo Oriental College.

## Career

Faruque began his career with the Bengal–Nagpur Railway in 1921, eventually serving as General Manager of the East Indian Railways (1946–1948).
After the partition of India, he served as chairman of the Pakistan Jute Board and Cotton Board (1949–1952), chairman of the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (1952–1958), and chairman of the Pakistan Ordnance Factory. Faruque was involved in the establishment of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and became the chairman of East Pakistan WAPDA in 1958. He contributed to the negotiation of the Indus Water Treaty.
Faruque was appointed Governor of East Pakistan in 1962, taking office on May 11. Later that year, he resigned due to political unrest on October 28, 1962. He also held several other governmental roles, including Federal Minister for Commerce, Defence Advisor (1965–1967), chairman of the Investment Corporation of Pakistan, Secretary of the Ministry of Industry, and Minister for Finance, Planning and Development of the NWFP Province. He was undefeated in every election in which he was a candidate over his entire political career. He defeated Arbab Noor Muhammad Khan in his home town, Peshawar NW.2, in 1970. He was reelected from NW.2 in 1972. He died on April 29, 1992.
Faruque advanced the vision behind the development of the gas fields, He was integral to the development of the printing company that prints Pakistani currency, setting up Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation & Pakistan's first cement plant and developing the Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works and establishing Water & Power Development Authority.

### Ghulam Faruque Group

In 1947, Faruque founded the Ghulam Faruque Group.
* Cherat Cement
* Cherat Papersack
* Mirpurkhas Sugar Mills
* Faruque (Pvt.) Ltd
* Greaves Pakistan
* Greaves C.N.G
* Greaves Air-Conditioning(Pvt.) Ltd
* Greaves Engineering
* Madian Hydro Power Ltd.—A JV Company
* Unicol Ltd.—A JV Company
* Zensoft (Pvt.) Ltd

## Awards and honors

He received several honors, including Officer of the Order of the British Empire (1944), Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (1946), Commander of the Order of Merit of Spain (1956), and Hilal-e-Pakistan (1958).