Ghatge had three brothers and one sister, Ghatge being the youngest. Vishnupant had studied Aeronautics while Sakharam was a builder by profession. Born in a small village Hasurchampu in Gadhinglaj Taluka, the Ghatges are traditional Brahmins with strong roots in Kolhapur. Going back, six to seven generations, it is known that the Ghatges actually belonged to the Kulkarni community of Kolhapur. Madhavrao Venkatesh, father to Ghatge was born into the Vaishav community of Karnataka in 1886. Madhavrao and Radhabai had five children, the youngest being Vasantrao. After finishing Master of Science in Botany from Fergusson College of Pune, Ghatge started his career as a professor in Rajaram College. After teaching for a few months, he had to resign his post when he was diagnosed with Tuberculosis. Ghatge, being calm and understanding by nature made friends very easily; one of his closest friends was Jaykumar Patil. Jaykumar Patil belonged to a Jain family of Kolhapur. The Patil family ran a small goods transportation business which was dependent on a single truck and the route for which was a fixed Kolhapur-Mumbai trip. Many a times, Jaykumar Patil himself drove the truck all the way to Mumbai. Sakharampant, the elder brother of Ghatge was a civil engineer by profession had started with the construction business in Kolhapur. During 1941–42, Sakharam had bagged an Airport building contract which required regular goods transportation from Kolhapur to Belgaum. Sakharam had one truck to handle the transportation but had a shortage of one truck. Ghatge suggested Jaykumar what for the assignment to which Jaykumar agreed at once to help. After the completion of the assignment in 1943, Ghatge suggested to start a sole goods transport business using the two trucks and that is how Ghatge Patil Transports took birth and the partnership began. In 1945, during the reign of E.W Perry, the business bagged its first major contract of Rajaram Rifles to transport wood under the commandment of Gen. Thorat. With this contract, Ghatge & Patil had struck a gold mine and gained respect in town for handling the Indian Army consignments. After the World-War II, the infrastructure and specifically roads were in ruins which directly affected vehicle transport and the motor components.