'The real boom was after tie-ups with global giants'

Q&A/ Rajinder Gupta

Abhishek Industries Ltd, the flagship company of the Trident group, which has interests in yarn, terry towels, paper, chemicals and energy, is soon venturing into a sugar and distillery project and the IT sector.

The company also plans to more than double the capacity of its paper operations. Rajinder Gupta, CEO and managing director of the Trident group, spoke to Puneet Pal Singh Gill about the company's plans. Excerpts:

What has been the impact of your tie-ups with international players?

After the quota era, Abhishek Industries has been able to achieve a compounded annual growth rate of 30 per cent. We are today rated as one of the fastest growing companies of the country.

Although we started exporting terry towels in 1998, the real boom came only after 2000, when we tied up with global retail giants like Wal-Mart, which helped us gain the first-mover advantage in towels.

Such associations not only gave us the much-needed financial buffer in terms of business volumes, but also encouraged us to improve our quality systems to meet their stringent standards, and further cutting down our delivery times to meet the global market needs.

Today, besides Wal-Mart, Abhishek Industries also supplies terry towels to department stores, mass merchants, specialty stores, club stores and premium brand stores across the US and Europe. The company is also shipping to major hotel chains and new format retail chains in India.

In the village cluster adoption programme, how many villages has the company adopted? Is it planning to adopt any new villages? How does the company help the farmers under this programme?

In Punjab, Abhishek Industries runs a village cluster adoption programme through the formation of a consortium with leading textile mills, State Bank of Patiala, Punjab National Bank, Punjab's agriculture department, Punjab Agriculture University and the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Under this programme, 6,030 farmer families from 25 villages under 5 clusters "" Kotkapura-Muktsar, Jaitu, Sangat, Maur-Bhuchu and Mansa "" have been adopted to revive cotton and transfer technology to farmers for raising productivity and upgrading the quality of cotton.

What is the status of the farmers' agitation against the company at Barnala? Is the company in talks with farmer organisations?

Abhishek Industries has given a fair and adequate land price to the farmers. We believe that farmers will see the reasonability of the deal and the matter will be resolved very soon.

The company is in continuous touch with all parties and expects an amicable resolution very soon.

The company has also provided crop compensation to the farmers. Further, the company has promised to provide employment to a deserving member of the families of land owners.

Where can we see Abhishek Industries in the next 10 years?

We plan to create a leader out of every member in the company. We expect to have revenues of $1 billion by 2010.