“Like pharma, the pesticides sector is also changing very quickly...”

Salil Singhal, CMD, PI Industries Ltd. on the challenges of the pesticides sector

Having been associated with agriculture since 1967, Salil Singhal, CMD, PI Industries has a lot to talk about in a free flowing interview with Niharika Patra

B&E: What actually is the flaw with Indian agriculture?

Salil Singhal (SS): The input side of agriculture has issues. For example, if you compare the production to pesticides usage, India has a total cropped area of around 167 million hectares while the US has around 172 million hectares. In pesticides consumption, US figure is around $7 billion while for India it is $1.2 billion. Because of poor use of pesticides we are loosing crop to the tune of $20 billion per annum. The cost benefit ratio in agriculture is very high to the tune of Rs. 19 per Re.1 employed for some crops, and if you compare the $ 22 billion in fertilizer subsidies, we have grown the crops for the pests to eat it away. There are many other problems like procedures of introducing new seeds, the distribution of subsidies et al. There seems to be little focus.

B&E: How do you compare the era of 60’s and present. Do you think there has been any kind of deterioration?

SS: No. Undoubtedly, the Green Revolution gave us a lot. Today, even without favourable conditions we can produce 210-230 million tonnes of foodgrains. But looking at the changing food habits, what we have is not enough to satisfy this ever changing need. We have to double our food grain output and agricultural output resource to be able to do that. But we are not geared for that right now and agriculture needs structural changes.

B&E: What is the focus of the pesticide industry in relation to the productivity of the crop?

SS: Cost benefit is a very important input. The second important input is quality output. Organic farming doesn’t work for quality. Petsicides can give quality with high productivity and that is our focus.

B&E: There is a lot of hue and cry about the excessive use of chemicals. What are your views?

SS: Pesticides usage has come up very recently while the fertilizers have been used for a long time. Today, we understand that there is a problem and we have identified it and it needs to be resolved.

B&E: Does pesticide industry face challenge from the genetically modified (GM) crops?

SS: Yes. The problem is that the science of pesticides is changing phenomenally. The whole science and technology of agri-chemicals has changed. Like pharma, the pesticides industry keeps changing quickly but that is not there in GM crops. The cost of new discovery is very high ($600-800 million and atleast 8-10 years to commercialise it). Then there are the regulations. Until 2005 companies were allowed ‘me-too’ registrations. This is where India has been the biggest looser The ‘me-too’ registration has nearly destroyed the Indian pesticide industry. We also have the most in-efficient and corrupt regulatory mechanism.

B&E: How do you see the growth by the Chinese market and its effects on India?

SS: There is a lot of illegal import by the fly-by-night operators from China. There are certain groups within the industry who are trying to bring in the Chinese agenda of reverse engineering.

B&E: How well suited are Indian pesticides companies for M&As. What about PI Industries.

SS: I have not seen many foreign companies taking up Indian companies. It would be too early to comment on this. We are definitely looking forward to M&As and are fully prepared to fit into any good deal that comes forward.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Tathagata bhattcharya seeks to find if the tail can still wag the dog

Naidu’s Vision 2020’s objective was to promote the commercial interests of the agribusiness companies (read foreign financial institutes and international bankers) and the IT hardware units. Thus, he was swept away by a tidal wave of the angry farmers.

The small and marginal farmers, in tandem with the landless labourers, who constitute nearly 80 per cent of Andhra's 80 million people, gave their verdict. The industry-sponsored economic initiatives of Naidu were anti-poor, he was weeded out in the elections.

Prior to the latest stir over Telanagana, TDP made a significant departure from its known ideological stand on a unified Andhra Pradesh. In its opportunistic policy reversal, the party agreed to a separate Telangana in its election manifesto.

“But, when the Union government made a statement favouring separation of Telangana, the usually media-savvy Naidu, who should have played the role of a responsible Opposition leader, has been in exile to evade clearing his party’s stand, which is the penultimate state of ‘Congressisation’,” Mukkamala said.

TDP is failing to meet the growing aspirations of communities that have been on the periphery for decades. It has failed to deliver development to most of the people it ruled for nearly two decades.

Vadakku vaazhgirathu, Therku Theykirathu (North is developing, south is losing) was the once favourite rhetoric of Karunanidhi, the DMK patriarch. But times have changed. The once separtist Dravidian party of Tamil Nadu has merged into the national mainstream and in Karunanidhi's own words, DMK has become, in the course of the last decade (the years DMK was in power at Centre), ''Dravidian national party".

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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From dream homes to empty nests

As the number of unoccupied houses in Kerala goes up every year with more and more people relocating overseas, Anu Warrier seeks to find answers to the social, economic and environmental questions these vacant houses raise

K.J. Mathew of Thiruvalla in Kerala had dreams of having a house once. He realised that dream 45 years ago. Now he regrets that. He built a small but decent house for his family of nine, including his parents. Later, his children renovated the house when they got employed in Dubai. All of them gradually constructed their own houses nearby. Today, Mathew finds himself as a housekeeper looking after four houses built by his sons and himself. “When I want to see my children, I look at these keys they entrusted me with. After the death of my wife, they engaged a domestic help to support me. Our main job is to clean each house at least once a month,” says a tired Mathew.

The story of Mathew is not an isolated instance. All across Kerala, there are parents like Mathew who are left alone in large houses while their children have migrated abroad. They are forced to look after the houses they have constructed. And then, there are houses constructed by their NRI sons and daughters. In some places, relatives are entrusted with the charge of looking after these houses. In some, housekeepers do the job.

According to the 2001 Census, around 7.3 lakh houses in the state remained unoccupied. The Economic Review 2006 puts the number at more than 10 lakh. The same document reveals that the number of homeless families in the state is 10.85 lakh. Most of the vacant houses are in Pathanamthitta district which accounts for the second-highest migrant population in the state.

Joseph Mathew, a native of Kumbanad village of Pathanamthitta, tries to reason. “Those who migrate to the Gulf countries are the owners of most of these houses. Once they get a good job there, they build huge and posh houses which blare out that they are rich and in a good position there. The size of the house and amenities inside it are status symbols here. They fly back to their workplace after the housewarming ceremony, locking them up. These houses might be occupied only once in one or two years. The rest of the time, these are looked after either by their parents or by housekeepers they employ.” In a way, building the house and its maintenance is mindlessly expensive.

The first generation of migrants to US and UK committed the same mistake. They built large houses for their parents and children. But the parents passed away and the children never wanted to come back to Kerala. Most of those houses were sold at throwaway prices.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Lals of dwindling returns

The successors of the once dominant Lals of Haryana - Devi, Bansi and Bhajan - are running out of steam, discovers Vikas Kumar

The politics of Haryana has for long revolved around the three Lals - Bansi Lal, Devi Lal and Bhajan Lal. After the state was carved out in 1966, these Lals took turns to rule it. Their political dominance was almost unchallenged. But that era now seems to be fading. The legacy of the Lals is on the wane.

Bhajan Lal, who mastered the craft of political defections, was always synonymous with the politics of ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’. At his Sector 5 residence in Hisar there is much hustle and bustle. His Haryana Janhit Party is commemorating its second anniversary. However, instead of boasting about achievements of his fledgling party, his younger son Kuldeep Bishnoi was busy criticising their five MLAs, who had switched loyalties within one month of the election. His opponents call it poetic justice.

Bhajan Lal, quietly sitting in the corridor with his close associates, seems helpless. His son is facing the rough end of the stick. A strategy used in the past seems to have boomeranged. Ramjilal, one of the closest confidantes of the Bhajan Lal family and his five-decade-old friend, says, “He is unparalleled among the three ‘Lals’. With his shrewd political acumen he had sidelined political stalwarts like Devi Lal and Bansi Lal.” Asked to compare the father and son, he tries to avert the question but finally admits, “Kuldeep is rigid while Bhajan Lal is flexible. One cannot go ahead in politics with a rigid attitude.”

However, the political clout of Bhajan Lal and his party has diminished in the past few years and he is no longer a force to reckon with in Haryana. The decline has been so rapid that Kuldeep managed to win by a thin margin of 6,000 votes from the Adampur constituency in the 2009 assembly election and his wife Jasma Devi lost miserably in Nalwa constituency to Prof. Sampat Singh of the Congress.

Arunesh, a senior Haryana journalist who has observed the father-son duo closely, says, “Kuldeep is a fresh face. If he stands alone for the next five years, he will certainly be able to revive his party. Haryana Janhit Party had created a buzz among voters but failed to carry the momentum due to lack of coordination. The elder son, Chandra Mohan, is not taken seriously even by his own family.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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THE GREAT INDIAN DYNASTIES

Barkatda did much else. As railway minister, he introduced Gaur Express between Sealdah and Maldah. It enables residents to travel overnight to and from the state capital. “Whenever a Maldah resident thinks of Gaur Express, he recalls Ghani Khan,” adds a Left Front minister.

One of Ghani Khan’s brothers, Abu Hashem Khan Chowdhury, is the MP from Maldah South, while another, Abu Nasser Khan Chowdhury, represents Sujapur segment in the state Assembly. Sujapur was earlier represented by Ghani Khan’s younger sister, Rubi Noor and her daughter, Mausam.

“Maldah was a part of his being. He gave the place national prominence. Besides bringing in a direct power supply line from Chukha in Bhutan, he was instrumental in setting up a 1700 MW NTPC plant at Farakka in Murshidabad district, during his stint as Union minister in the 1980s. He ensured that power cuts did not affect farmers,” says Abu Hashem, alias Dalu-da. “We would ask him how he managed to do so much. His answer would be, ‘illegally’, which meant by bypassing bureaucratic channels.”

Speaking to TSI at Adina Masjid, Mausam Noor says, “We used to frequent this area with Baro Mama. He worked hard to protect these Hindu and Muslim relics of Maldah. He put pressure on ASI to release funds. Mama and my mother did much for these monuments through Zilla Parishad too."

“We owe everything to Baro Mama,” asserts Mausam. "He brought my mother and Dalu Mama into politics. But this is not all. One should regard him as the visionary of modern Maldah. Because of him, Maldah was the first town outside Kolkata to have a Doordarshan tower."

Another Ghani Khan niece, Shehnaj Kaderi, is all set to join politics. She heads the historical Piranapir’s Mosque and Chhoto Darga.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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