Govind Prasad Ambashtha was a popular man in this area during 1960s to 1990s. The prosperous businessmen built huge mansions in Jhumri Telaiya. Untill the late 1960s, Mercedes and Porsche cars, and thoroughbreds from Arabia used to be common in Jhumri Telaiya. The city once boasted of the highest number of phone connections and phone calls made in India. Most of the mica business, was moved to the government-owned corporations sometime in 1973-74 through a government venture called as Bihar Mica Syndicate which had mica mines in Sapahi, 40 km from Jhumri Telaiya. This government venture was renamed to Bihar State Mineral Development Corporation (BSMDC), which is now known as Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation. Most of the mica used to be exported to USSR, for space and military equipment. The first firm to export mica was Birdhichand Bansidhar and later they setup their office in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and other places. With the dissolution of the USSR and the discovery of a synthetic substitute for mica, the mining activity declined in the 1990s.