The New Chemistry At Bengal Chemicals

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: The first chemical company in British India, incorporated in 1901. Set up and funded by a visionary Bengali chemist and a host of luminaries of the freedom movement. Run as a flourishing business, then run to the ground by the mismanagement of another Bengali family. Nationalised by the Union government and then revived by the combined efforts of workers and a management led by a descendant of the founder whose forte is British MBA diploma.

Such is the turnaround story of Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd, some of whose products have remained household names all through these turbulent years . Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals began operations in 1892 . The brainchild of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy, who was also the chief chemist of the company, Bengal Chemicals was an intrinsic part of India’s freedom movement. It became so profitable that many prominent business houses mounted hostile takeover bids. Mr Probir Roy, the current managing director, said the company was profit-making right from the beginning. “The quality of the products was very much at par with the imported products available then,” says Roy.

Probir Roy, Managing Director, Bengal Chemicals

“Differences cropped up between the management and Acharya PC Roy and he resigned in the early 1930s, protesting that the company was not spending enough on research and was paying huge dividends to its shareholders,” says Mr Roy.