Surat · Gujarat · Since 2008
દીકરીઓના પપ્પાThe businessman thousands of daughters call Papa.
Mahesh Savani is a Surat entrepreneur of the PP Savani Group. For almost two decades he has stood in the place of a father for girls who lost theirs. He hosts their weddings, gives them what a family would give, and keeps showing up long after the ceremony ends.
5,000+daughters’ weddings hosted, according to the family and media reports from 2023–25.
At a glance
- Roots
- Ranparada, SaurashtraA Patidar family that built its livelihood in Surat’s diamond trade
- Enterprise
- PP Savani GroupDiamonds, real estate, schools, a university and a hospital
- First kanyadaan
- 2008For two sisters who lost their father days before their weddings
- Known as
- મહેશ પપ્પા“Mahesh Papa”, the name his daughters use for him
The promise
It began with one family’s grief and a question no one else answered.
In 2008, a man close to the Savani family died shortly before the weddings of his two daughters. Reports differ on the details: some describe him as a relative, others as one of Mahesh Savani’s employees. What they agree on is what came next. Savani stepped in, performed the kanyadaan (the giving away of the bride traditionally done by her father) and paid for both weddings.
Word travelled. More mothers who had lost their husbands came forward with the same worry. Individual weddings became group ceremonies and then an annual December celebration on the grounds of a PP Savani school in Surat. Couples from dozens of communities and several faiths now marry there under one roof.
“These girls are like my daughters,” he told reporters in 2017. “I am like a foster father to them. It gives me a lot of joy to see them happy.”
In numbers
Measured in families, not headlines.
Each figure below comes from published news reports or from the PP Savani Group’s own announcements. Where sources give different numbers, we show the most recent documented figure and say who reported it.
Sources are listed on each topic page. Figures announced by the PP Savani Group are attributed to the group.
Areas of work
Four threads of one commitment.
- 01Social InitiativesAnnual mass weddings for fatherless daughters, with gifts, insurance and support that continues after marriage.
- 02Education & ChildrenThe PP Savani schools and university, sponsorship of fatherless students, and pledges for the children of martyred soldiers.
- 03Community ImpactOrgan-donation pledges, interfaith harmony, pilgrimages for mothers, and support for widowed women.
- 04Initiatives & ProjectsA dated register of every documented initiative, and a record of his time in public life.
Milestones
From one machine to a movement.
Scroll sideways through the moments that shaped the Savani story, from a father’s first diamond unit to weddings attended by tens of thousands.
A family enterprise begins
Vallabhbhai Savani, who started as a labourer earning ₹125 a month, sets up his own diamond unit with a single machine.
Mahesh joins the business
After a civil engineering diploma in Bengaluru, he joins his father and expands production and overseas branches.
The first kanyadaan
He gives away two sisters whose father died before their weddings, and the initiative is born.
236 brides, and a pledge
His December ceremony draws international press. Earlier that year he pledged education for the children of the Uri attack martyrs.
P P Savani University
The family’s university is established under Gujarat’s private universities law, at Kosamba near Surat.
A national record
1,38,283 organ-donation pledges at the “Dikri Jagat Janani” ceremony enter the India Book of Records.
“Piyariyu”
111 daughters from 39 communities marry in a two-day ceremony blessed by Morari Bapu.
In his words
“With Sunday’s mass wedding, I have become a proud father to have performed kanyadaan of over 700 girls.”
Mahesh Savani, speaking to AFP after the December 2016 ceremony in Surat
Children first
A wedding is one day. An education lasts a lifetime.
The Savani family’s engagement with children is older than the weddings. The first PP Savani school opened in Surat’s Varachha area in the 1980s. The group now runs a network of schools and a state-recognised private university.
Mahesh Savani has used that network to pledge free schooling and hostel places for children who lost a parent in the service of the nation, after the Uri attack in 2016 and the Pahalgam attack in 2025. In 2022 he launched a student adoption scheme for 1,000 children.
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