<P> Thirukkurungudi Vengaram Sundaram Iyengar (22 March 1877 - 28 April 1955) was an Indian industrialist and automobile pioneer . In 1911, he founded T.V. Sundaram Iyengar & Sons, a bus company which later diversified into automobile production and emerged as the parent company of the TVS Group, one of India's biggest business conglomerates . With his humble beginning as a lawyer, he grew into one of the most successful industrialists of his time . The Flagship Company of the group is TVS Motors established by his son T.S. Doraiswamy . He laid foundation for road transport industry in the erstwhile Madras Presidency through the states first bus service . The TVS group he thus started now extends from motor industry, autoservices to financial services . </P> <P> T.V. Sundaram Iyengar was born in 1877 in Thirukkurungudi in the Tirunelveli district of Madras Presidency, British India . Sundram Iyengar started his initial career as a lawyer, as per his father's wishes, then moved to work for the Indian railways and later in a bank . </P> <P> Sundram Iyengar later quit his jobs and laid the foundation for the motor transport industry in South India when he first started a bus service in the city of Madurai in the year 1911 . He established the T.V. Sundram Iyengar and Sons Limited in 1911, which by his death in 1955, operated a number of buses and lorries under the title of Southern Roadways Limited . This paved the way for the genesis of the TVS Group . </P> <P> During the times of the second world war, Madras Presidency was met with petrol scarcity, to meet the demands, Sundram Iyengar designed and produced the TVS Gas Plant . He also started a factory for rubber retreading, besides two more concerns, the Madras Auto Service Ltd and the Sundaram Motors, a division of TV Sundram Iyengar & Sons Ltd., the former was the largest distributors of General Motors in the 1950s . What started as a single man's passion soon became the business of a family . </P>

Who laid the foundation of road transport industry in madras