Varun Sood: Courting success

BACKSTAGE

Even the protectionist Bombay Club couldn't have dreamed of anything so audacious. While it lobbied to slow down the process of liberalisation, the 39-year-old Sandeep Jajodia simply challenged the government's right to delicense the sugar industry as his mill in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh began facing problems when new mills began snatching the cane allocated to the existing mills.

With the Allahabad High Court ruling in his favour, saying the government did not have the right to delicense industries, the government has now appealed this in the Supreme Court which will rule on the matter today (September 19).

Jajodia, who ventured into the sugar business in 1997 by setting up a 5,000-tonne per day cane crushing unit began looking for buyers in 2002-03, but didn't find any willing to offer a reasonable price.

Now that the price cycle is moving upwards once again, things look better, though delicensing has lead to the fear of poaching by new and more politically-connected groups.

Jajodia, who is vice chairman and managing director of the Rs 550 crore Monnet Ispat Ltd also owns a 3 lakh tpa sponge iron plant and a steel plant of equivalent capacity.

Besides being the chairman of the 54-member strong Sponge Iron Manufacturers Association (SIMA), Jajodia heads the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Chattisgarh chapter. The group started with a sponge iron plant in small village called Kurud in Madhya Pradesh with a capacity of one lakh tonne per annum, with an investment of Rs 36 crore.

In 1994-95, MIL set up a 50,000 tpa steel-making facility. Today, the group's projected 2007 turnover is Rs 1,500 crore, by which time it hopes to have acquired some overseas iron ore and manganese mines, expanded the capacity of its sponge iron plant to 5 lakh tonne per annum and the steel plant to 4.5 lakh tpa.

A bachelor in commerce graduate from Delhi University, Sandeep Jajodia started his career under his father, M K Jajodia, in 1988.

Thereafter, the young Jajodia was attracted to the iron and steel business and along with Jindal Strips, which still owns 10 per cent in the company, incorporated Monnet Ispat ltd (MIL) in early 1990.

Ask the young managing director as to why he did not go in for a MBA degree, and the son-in-law of late O P Jindal says, "I preferred industrial experience to higher studies as I thought hands-on experience in field of business would be more bankable on a long term basis."