Girdhari Lal Salwan was born in the year 1902 in a remote village of Kartarpur, Punjab, in the family of Pandit Mool Raj Salwan. After the early demise of his father, he was left in his early twenties, to bring up his entire family of six brothers and one sister. Having completed only his primary education, Pandit Girdhari Lal Salwan worked hard with little means to earn his lively hood. The cruel hand of death snatched away all his brothers in their youth one by one and it was now on the shoulders of Girdhari Lal Salwan to bring up their families along with his own.
In the year 1921, G.L.Salwan moved to Peshawar, Pakistan to set up his furniture business as an ordinary carpenter, toiling hard. Honesty and perseverance became the cardinal principles of his work. It was in the year 1936; circumstances overtook the education of the minorities in Peshawar. He vowed to impart education to all - to the neediest of the needy - free of cost.