 He was also the chairman of the Charutar Vidya Mandal, which founded Vallabh Vidyapith that was later on named as Sardar Patel University, Vallabh Vidyanagar

Patel was born on 27 August 1904 in Bombay (now Mumbai), in the erstwhile Bombay Presidency of British India.He was educated St. Xavier's in Bombay, before he left for England, aged 14.He graduated from St Catherine's College, Oxford with a major in economics and joined the Indian Civil Service in October 1927.