"The idea is to bring more accountability to more businesses"

AM. Naik may be 74 and handing over the reins as chief executive next year, but he's far from done yet. During his 17 years at the helm, L&T has grown from a struggling engineering company into an engineering technology giant with more than Rs 1 lakh crore in annual revenues, making everything from roads to missile launchers.

What will 74-year-old A.M. Naik do after his retirement in September 2017? (That is, if L&T's board decides to relieve him from active roles.) "One will have to hang up boots someday in life," says Naik. "I will work for nobody, since my life's mission was L&T and I worked here for 51 years." So, first off, he will stay with the families of his son and daughter in the US. Naik's son Jignesh works with Google in California and his wife Rucha is CIO of retailer Safeway. Naik's daughter Pratiksha and her husband Mukul are both doctors in Kentucky.

Every year, Naik travels to the US for business as chairman of L&T Infotech, but he rarely stays with his children. "They have given up on me because 'you come one night and go away the next morning'. So, I have promised them, next October onwards you would not have any complaints," says Naik.

In addition, Naik has sold part of the shares he held in L&T - which he got through employee stock option - for a major charity foray. He has floated three trusts - Kharel Education Society, Nirali Memorial Medical Trust and Naik Charitable Trust.

Healthcare under Nirali Memorial Trust - named after his granddaughter Nirali, who died of cancer in 2007 at two years of age - will be a big area of focus. Naik has already started the Nirali Memorial Radiation Centre in Surat and is planning to set up A.M. Naik Charitable Health Centre, an all-discipline day-care hospital at Powai in Mumbai. Kharel Education Society and Naik Charitable Trust are upgrading and expanding the primary school at Endhal village and the higher secondary school in Kharel. The Kharel Education Society has set up many institutes in three talukas of the region- Navrasi, Chikli and Gandevi. At Valsad, Naik is setting up an expanded modern campus for a vedic school, which teaches Sanskrit and other ancient scriptures.

And yes, Naik will pen his autobiography titled, appropriately, V to W - Village to the World. It will tell the story of a person who grew up in a village of 2,500 people and went on to create India's No.1 engineering and construction behemoth.