Germ of an idea fertilised

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: This is the story of Bhaskar Fertilisers — the company based in Anantapur and was founded by the Bhaskar family. As the company’s trials and tribulation are inter-twined with that of its promoters we will tell you about the personalities behind the success of this venture first. It is owned by a family of agriculturists; the farming background ostensibly rendered invaluable inputs to C. Vijaya Bhaskar, who is managing director of the company. To start at the beginning, Vijaya completed his college intermediate course in Anantapur, which was the nearest town from his village.

After that he joined the family business because of its brewing internal troubles. At that time the business was looked after by his brother. Vijaya first acquired substantial experience in marketing of fertilizers and then he planned its backward integration, i.e. manufacturing of various varieties of the fertilisers. He admittedly even today does not have any experience in the manufacturing of fertilisers, but is past master in marketing.

The most excrutiating part of fertiliser business.

We have chosen to tell you the story of a fertiliser company because the industry is torn between the demands made by the end-users, viz: the farming community, governments and policy-makers and the vagaries of marketplace. Talking about the setting up of the enterprise, Vijaya said: ‘’we faced severe problems with government departments in getting initial licenses and permissions. Regarding finance, we found State Bank of India, Anantapur Branch quite responsive for sanctioning of required credit limits, but we have faced some procedural difficulties in release of funds well in time’’.

Vijaya found the market for their product quite early in business as “ours is an economy depending on agriculture. It is the backbone of our economic system. I was thrilled to learn that since 50 years because of the Green Revolution the usage of chemical fertilisers has gone up multifold and the farmers have benefited with high yield by usage of chemical fertilisers”.