Triveni Journal
1927 | 11,233,916 words
Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....
Dr. Y.V.S.S. Murty
Government service: I did M.Sc. (Tech.) Chemical Engg. from Andhra University in 1947, and after working in a colonial company for one year, I joined as Inspector of Factories in Madras Government in 1948, a gazetted job with good pay, perks and a social status. I had training in Public health in 1949 and in 1950 under ILO experts at Delhi for a period of three months during which time my duty gave me an opportunity to visit a good number of large factories in Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta. In 1958 I went to U.K. under Colombo Plan to undergo training for 4 months with British Factory Inspectorate followed by a four week special in-house training course in Wadham College, Oxford under the auspices of the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA). I could visit many large factories along with my counterparts in U.K. and a few in Rotterdam area, (Holland) and Munich (Germany). This was by any account a great opportunity and experience. I had promotions and was getting a four figure salary. Yet I took the risk of taking a decision to leave Government service in 1961.
Technology Itch: My decision was prompted by an irrepressible urge for fresh fields and pastures new. By education I was a chemical engineer. Even in my undergraduate days I used to be inspired by reading the history of chemical discoveries and developments and motivated by outstanding scientists like SIR P.C. RAY, the pioneer of Indian Chemical Industry. My government job was somewhat unrelated to my educational ground, mostly because in those days the chemical industry in India was nascent. This being so, my job did not give me professional satisfaction.
Further, the great opportunity I had in the very same Government service for training within India and abroad and the visits to a large number of Industrial units in highly developed countries like U.K., Holland and Germany seeded in my mind the idea of establishing my own chemical industry in the country or at least work in a large chemical industry, instead of stagnating in the limited space of a regulatory Government job.
Public sector service: In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s the then world scale Petroleum Refineries and Fertilizer factories came into being in India. At the first available opportunity I left the government job in 1961 and went into employment in Nangal Fertilizers Company, a giant factory set up by Govt. of India on the banks of river Sutlej in Punjab. I gained hands-on experience in this unique factory, which used air, water and power as raw materials, with technology and engineering supplied by a consortium of Italian, French and German engineering companies.
In 1965, I had to leave Nangal, due to family reasons and join as a C.E.O of a medium size chemical factory of the State Government. This factory was a monumental example of what a factory ought not to be. There was nothing right in this factory in terms of layout, infrastructure, technology, operation, marketing, industrial relations and administration. However, I worked for 3 years in this institution 12 to 16 hours a day and brought into effect considerable changes bringing prosperity to the institution which was otherwise mired in huge losses and industrial strife. In all modesty I may say, turning around a sick Industry was a great experience and notable achievement.
Entrepreneur: Right at that time the winds of Government - sponsored entrepreneurship development programmes were wafting across the country and Andhra Pradesh was no exception. The Industrial Development Corporation of A.P. was offering joint venture schemes with 50% equity participation to technologists who wanted to set up an industry. I grabbed this opportunity and the idea of setting up an industry all by my own which was dormant for some years, became a reality now. My success in achieving a turn-around of a sick unit naturally increased my self confidence and fuelled my desire. So when I became an entrepreneur in 1968 and set up a joint venture with APIDC, one of the first with APIDC, I was full of confidence.
Selecting a project: There was however one area in which I felt deficiency and that was marketing. I had little or no experience in marketing, particularly consumer marketing. Problems in securing finances, setting up a project and getting necessary licenses and clearances, identification and implementation of technology and engineering, commissioning and operating a plant to the designed capacity can be resolved in time with dedication, diligence and perseverance. But marketing would be a bugbear, a perpetual problem. Therefore, I was keen on identifying a project in which marketing would be less of a bother. It occurred to me that one such project was the manufacture of Sodium Metal, an important chemical needed in the synthesis of drugs for which IDPL a Govt. of India company had set up a unit in Hyderabad in 1965. I had calculated that my project being a joint venture with APIDC (a State Government unit), it would not be difficult to negotiate terms of purchase and supply with IDPL to our mutual satisfaction. I had thought my project being also an import substitution effort would get support. Moreover, Sodium Metal was then not manufactured in India and had to be imported from USA, U.K, France, Germany and Russia, the erstwhile world war powers who had the technology for its manufacture.
Sodium Metal is a highly power intensive industry and required concessional power tariff. We negotiated with IDPL and the Electricity Board for support for the project, which was promised and subsequently MOU.s were drawn up.
CECRI a National Laboratory at Karaikudi, claimed to have developed the technology for the manufacture of Sodium Metal. I went to CECRI for negotiations. It turned out that they were still at bench scale. Yet they demanded a hefty fees, royalty and exclusivity, inspite of the fact that up-scaling and engineering had to be done by me. As such, negotiations broke down. Then I explored the possibility of importing technology but in vain. However, I could access the engineering reports of the allied war commission which dismantled the German factories, including the Sodium Plant of Degussa. It was found that this document was for a very large capacity production. My plant was planned to produce 150 Te/year against the capacity of the German plant which was 15,000T/year. Hence I had to scale down the information and engineer a plant, which I could do. In eight months, I constructed the buildings and procured the equipment. The plant was commissioned in 1969. I have reason to think that it was quick progress.
Set : My troubles started from day one. Both IDPL and Electricity Board went on the terms of the MOU which was arrived at earlier. The high power tariff proved to be a great burden. IDPL would not buy Sodium Metal, unless the price was competitive with imports (IDPL was the sole consumer of Sodium Metal in the country at that time).
In my anxiety to cut down the costs of production, I went in for cheaper alternatives in the technology, with disastrous results. It took me several months to get to normalcy. Even then, production could not be maintained because IDPL continued to import. The company ran out of steam but there was consolation in the fact that financial support and assistance came from the Bankers and APIDC, which kept the company floating.
Perseverance: It was a testing time. Herculean efforts were made by the company and APIDC, at the State Government level as well as at Delhi. We even approached the Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi) and thanks to her intervention a very high level meeting was convened at Delhi in Feb. 1972 and IDPL was directed to stop imports and buy from the company at a negotiated price, and the Electricity Board was directed to offer to the company a concessional power tariff. However, it took nearly one year for these decisions to come into effect during which period the company was in agony.
Thus, for nearly four long years after the company went into production, I faced crisis after crisis and had led a hand to mouth existence. I was lucky that my workmen and staff were loyal and supported me all along. Infact my own relatives were under the impression that I did the foolish thing in leaving a lucrative job and embarking on a wild cat venture.
I can never express enough, gratitude to APIDC, which stood like a rock behind me through thick and thin. The company was one of the first joint ventures of APIDC and it had the unique distinction of being (a) a technocrat venture (b) with a highly innovative technology developed in-house by translating book information into a commercial plant (c) breaking the technological strangle-hold of the former second world war powers in the production of Sodium Metal. My survival was due to my “never say die” attitude.
New project: Between 1973 – 1978, thanks to the various initiatives mentioned, the company not only turned the corner and cleared all its liabilities but also embarked on setting up a much larger plant, once again with financial support from APIDC.
A brand new plant designed to produce 1000Te/year came into existence in 1980, again in a record time of 10 months, and went into smooth operation. We used Sodium Metal itself as a bus bar for which I obtained a patent and later received an award from NRDC. The earlier plant, the smaller one, was shut down.
Fighting the odds: It was false dawn. Within the first year itself the company once again ran into severe problems on account of electricity tariff and acute shortage of power and frequent unscheduled power outages. The power tariff was steeply enhanced for highly power intensive industries (H.P.I.) such as ours. Further, the HPI units were required to pay for 65% of the theoretically possible consumption of energy as minimum charge. Power shedding and power cuts became the order of the day and even so the HPI consumer had to pay minimum charges.
Sodium Metal is produced by the electrolysis of molten salt at a temperature of 600oC. Power shedding caused the electrolyte to freeze and resumption of production after power was restored was a herculean task. For every power outage, production loss was for 3-8 hrs. depending on the duration of power outage. It was becoming difficult to consume energy for which we had to pay minimum charges. Captive power generation was expensive, also it was not permitted. The problems of ever increasing cost of production, the night mare of operational problems, the burden of huge minimum charges and the increasing demand for Sodium Metal, from a newly emerging synthetic drug industry in the state, which the company was unable to meet - all these landed the company in a serious financial crisis. There was no respite or succour from the Electricity Board, which was then headed by an individual, who had intense dislike for consumers particularly the HPI consumers. He was out to crush the HPI consumers and was even openly leading a crusade against HPI consumers. We were constrained to approach the High Court and later even the Supreme Court to stay the arbitrary billing for minimum charges even for power which was neither consumed nor supplied. At this stage the then Minister for Power appreciated our problem and the injustice done to us and directed the Electricity Board through a Govt. executive order, not to collect the charges for power not supplied or not consumed, and restrained the Board from taking penal action. Thanks to this order the company obtained the much needed relief from the unjust levy of power charges. Soon the company turned the corner, cleared the loans and even bought the equity held in the company by APIDC.
But the problem of power shedding and power cut continued unabated, greatly impairing our production capacity and creating shortage of supply of Sodium Metal, an important and vital input to the emerging and fast growing synthetic drug industry. In 1987 this resulted in opening the flood gates for imported Sodium Metal, which was coming from the USSR at half the price our company charged. We sensed that future would be bleak.
The introduction of Sodium Metal Industry in the country by the company and making it readily available for nearly 20 years had led to the growth of bulk drug manufacture in the country and also the Fast Breeder Nuclear Technology.
Inspite of all the hassles and problems I faced, and the limited financial success I had, I feel proud of our technological contribution to the country and self-reliance. I had inspired many entrepreneurs to venture into industry, particularly in areas requiring innovation and technical challenge.
Consultancy firm: In 1983 I had set up a consultancy organization by the name of Chemical Design Co. Ltd., (CDC) to offer services in area of project studies particularly to Fertiliser Industry and also to carry out Safety Audits, Hazard and Operability studies and Risk Assessment of plant hazards in the chemical industry in general and in particular to the Fertiliser Industry and Hydrocarbon processing industry. I have developed software named as “Ghatana” to quantify plant hazards which greatly helped in the safety studies.
CDC was set up in association with experts in several engineering disciplines, most of whom were my colleagues who have retired from service after holding high ranking positions in the industry. Consultancy in these areas is offered for the first time in the country by my consultancy firm and long before the Bhopal tragedy. In 1987 I attended the World Conference on chemical accidents in Rome and presented a paper on Hazard Analysis. CDC prepared for a client, a project report for 450 TPD Ammonia plant with down stream urea, proposed to be set up in Godavary Delta based on gas from K.G. basin. It prepared for another client, a project report for a 150 TPD Super Phosphate plant, Sulfuric Acid, Sulfamic Acid and Oleum complex proposed to be set up in Bibinagar area R.R. Dist. It also prepared for yet another client project report to produce 1000 TPY of Iron Carbide from Iron Ore fines using gas from K.G. basin. The plant was proposed to be set up near Narsapur, W.G.Dt.
CDC acted as a consultant to GCCI, Libya for the setting up a Di Ammonia Phosphate unit. CDC is acting as consultant and supplies technical man power to GCCI since the last 10 years.
Know when to exit: However, I realised that time had come to draw down the curtain on this pioneering venture as I could foresee no end to electric power problems for at least another 20 years. Thus, in 1989, I had voluntarily closed down the Sodium Metal manufacture, retrenched workmen, surrendered power contract and came out of the clutches of power problems.
Lessons learnt: (1) Avoid total dependence on Government or Government agencies for raw materials or crucial inputs. (2) Manufacture and marketing a single product is not good for growth. One should have a basket of products, to weather market fluctuations, competition and obsolescence. (3) Do not depend on a single buyer for your products which in the long run leads to disaster.
Rising like a phoenix: 20 years after I became an entrepreneur for the first time, I came to square one, with hardly a couple of products on hand with a small turn over and still lower cash surplus. I had to make a fresh foray into technology and industry. Between 1989–1992, I once again researched and developed a few innovative products, involving hazardous chemistry and technology, which has been the hall mark of my endeavour all along and continues to be so even now. By 1992, I started exporting these products abroad and by the end of the 20th century we had in production many speciality and fine chemicals, mostly based on Sodium Metal.
Diversification: During the last few years we have set up new factories for extracting Oleoresins from natural products like Chillies, Turmeric, Tobacco etc., and Speciality Chemicals. We are also setting up a factory for production of Solanesol and Co Enzime Q-10, the first of its kind in the country, in the pharma zone at Vizag.
Contract research, Custom synthesis and exports: We have an independent unit for contract research and custom synthesis for MNCs in USA and Japan. Most of our products are exported to countries like USA, Europe and Japan. We have built-up a reputation as high quality producer of specialty chemicals.
Awards for the company: I am proud to say, the company also secured prestigious certification under ISO 9001 and ISO 14000 and recognition as in-house R&D by the Dept. of Science and Technology and above all coveted status as Export House.
The company also secured prestigious awards for
(1) Best R&D effort award from The Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry. (2) Best export performance award from The Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry. (3) Outstanding Export performance award from Basic Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals & Cosmetics Export Promotion Council.
Personal awards: I also received many awards and rewards, notably the following: -
(1) NRDC Invention Award for Sodium Bus bar.
(2)Watamull Foundation Award for High Technology entrepreneurship.
(3)Andhra University Chemical Engineering Alumni Association award for pioneering Sodium
& Sodium derivatives Technology.
(4) Entrepreneur of the year award from Hyderabad Management Association.
(5) Life Time Achievement Honour from Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Thorny path: The path of success is not a bed of roses. It is strewn with sharp stones and prickles. Thus our company has risen from crisis after crisis like the phoenix from its ashes and has grown rapidly since 1992 in terms of new products, technology, R&D, diversity, employment and profitability.
Community service: I am happy to say that the success achieved by me in the last 10 years has enabled me to create a Charitable Trust through which myself and my company is rendering community service by running a medical camp at Sultanpur in R.R. Dist for the last 3 years in which 19,000 people have been treated as out patients and 110 surgeries have been conducted free of cost. The trust is also offering scholarships for 45 students studying engineering and medicine. The trust is performing Nitya Annadanam and is giving monthly pensions to the poor, and supplying spectacles free to the poor through the Ramakrishna Math. Clothes are distributed to the poor in various Old Age Homes. This is a unique god-given opportunity for serving the society.
Life’s Lesson: I owe my success to self-confidence, dogged persistence and belief that adversity is but a stepping stone to success. Hard work, and dedication will never let us down. Achievement is a mind game. Young people will be surprised to know that I obtained my doctorate in Chemical Engineering from an American University at the age of 77, which proves that one is never too old for mind games. I have written my story in the hope that more young people will choose to become entrepreneurs instead of hankering after jobs, and create wealth for themselves and the country.
This success story of Dr. Murthy should encourage our youth to become entrepreneurs to become their own boss and chart their own future. However, it is not a prim rose path of dalliance. They have to be confident, adaptive, diligent, patient, persistent and determined to succeed. More than half of the world’s millionaires are entrepreneurs.
-Editor.