Panchu Gopal (P.) Ghosh was born in 1926 at Simla, India, the son of Niharbala and Rai Sahib Ashutosh Ghosh, Assistant Deputy Director-General of Posts and Telegraphs for the Government of India. He was educated at the Modern High School at New Delhi and the Presidency College, Calcutta. Between 1948 and 1951 Ghosh initially worked in the railway industry, resigning as a Junior Electrical Chargeman to join the GEC of India Ltd as a trainee in the Contracts Department. He was to remain with this company for the rest of his working life, transferring to the Fan Sales Department as an assistant in 1955, then becoming an increasingly senior manager in successive reorganisations of the fan-making operation, culminating as Deputy Head of the Fans Division by the time of his retirement in 1984.

Ghosh was an active member of several professional organisations: the Institution of Electrical Engineers, London; the Institute of Standards Engineers, India; the Indian Standards Institution, representing the fan making industry; the Fan Makers Association of India, representing the Company and serving as chairman 1963-5; and the Indian Engineering Association. In 1975 Ghosh was the Indian delegate to the International Electrotechnical Commission's meeting at the Hague, Netherlands, and in 1977 he served on the Indian Government's Working Group on Reliability Engineering in India.