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US Awasthi: Amazing resilience
Jun 11:
Uday Shankar Awasthi, managing director of Iffco, is the man behind India`s largest fertilizer cooperative, with an annual turnover of a daunting Rs 25,048 crore. But he is a man of varied versatility. While Awasthi can claim credit for sales of 11 million tonnes of fertilizers a year, he can equally be acclaimed for his highly-developed aesthetic awareness. Iffco`s achievement isn`t just the fact that it is the largest conglomerate of more than 36,000 cooperatives spread across the country, which form the core of its membership, but also that it boasts of arguably one of the largest corporate collections of contemporary Indian art -- an MF Husain canvas jostling for space with an inimitable Bikash Bhattacharya. It isn`t uncommon to spot a soulful work of Anjolie Ela Menon or a Manjit Bawa figurative masterpiece in one of Iffco`s distant outposts -- Aonla, Kalol, Phulpur, Kandla or Paradeep for instance.
8There can be no doubt that the multi-faceted Awasthi has, over the last five decades (of which 23 years have been spent as Iffco MD), added more than a dash of colour to the otherwise lackluster fertilizer industry. A chemical engineer from Banaras University, Awasthi`s association with fertilizers has seen him traverse through the chairmanship of Pyrites, Phosphates and Chemicals Ltd, and Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers Ltd (RCF), before he donned the mantle of Iffco MD in 1992. His roll-call to fame has also included his tenure as chairman of the Fertilizer Association of India (FAI) and the prestigious International Fertilizer Industry Association.
8When industry observers opine that he manages Iffco with a passion that is rare among professional managers, it isn`t entirely a flush of hyperbole. Given the fact that his fertilizer plants are of varying vintage, he has managed to administer them with a competence which is unquestionably exceptional. He has an unusual ability to think laterally and out-of-the-box.
8He has skillfully managed to keep a disparate bunch of directors on the board of his cooperative -- truly reflecting the diversity of its many members -- to work according to his plan. Among his many contributions in the two dozen-odd years at the helm of Iffco, Awasthi is likely to be remembered by posterity not only for the financial and managerial prowess that he has brought to the cooperative but, more importantly, for his single-minded campaign to rid the cooperative of claustrophobic governmental control that has helped Iffco to prosper faster than it did before, and while consolidating its fertilizer business in India, Awasthi has looked outwards for investments without governmental fetters. A massive $860 million phosphoric acid joint venture in Jordan has began paying dividends while he has adroitly withdrawn from the problem ridden phosphoric acid producer, Industries Chimiques du Senegal, by inducting a private Indian player. Iffco`s innovative Kishan Sanchar Ltd provides 10 lakh farmers with voice messages and foots an equal number of calls a month, and is now expanding into data services for farmers. The cooperative has spawned a host of other companies, in sectors as diverse as insurance, commodity trading and captive jetties.
8Over the years, Awasthi has become indispensable to Iffco, so much so that he has earned an unanimous five year extension of his tenure recently. Not someone to sit on his laurels, he has drawn up a Vision 2020 statement that speaks of moving forward with vigour into the 21st century by investing in energy saving schemes in his fertilizer plants, agro processing plants, e-commerce and venture capital projects. There are no doubt challenges ahead as an aggressive new government begins demanding more commitment from the fertilizer industry than others regimes in the past, and newer players jostle for space along with him in the industry, but clearly Awasthi -- the aesthete and manger all bundled into one persona -- will know how to stay on top and in control, for he has indeed mastered the art of managing people and circumstances with amazing resilience. By Ramesh Joshi
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Uday Shankar Awasthi, managing director of Iffco, is the man behind India`s largest fertilizer cooperative, with an annual turnover of a daunting Rs 25,048 crore. But he is a man of varied versatility. While Awasthi can claim credit for sales of 11 million tonnes of fertilizers a year, he can equally be acclaimed for his highly-developed aesthetic awareness. Iffco`s achievement isn`t just the fact that it is the largest conglomerate of more than 36,000 cooperatives spread across the country, which form the core of its membership, but also that it boasts of arguably one of the largest corporate collections of contemporary Indian art -- an MF Husain canvas jostling for space with an inimitable Bikash Bhattacharya. It isn`t uncommon to spot a soulful work of Anjolie Ela Menon or a Manjit Bawa figurative masterpiece in one of Iffco`s distant outposts -- Aonla, Kalol, Phulpur, Kandla or Paradeep for instance. 8There can be no doubt that the multi-faceted Awasthi has, over the last five decades (of which 23 years have been spent as Iffco MD), added more than a dash of colour to the otherwise lackluster fertilizer industry. A chemical engineer from Banaras University, Awasthi`s association with fertilizers has seen him traverse through the chairmanship of Pyrites, Phosphates and Chemicals Ltd, and Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers Ltd (RCF), before he donned the mantle of Iffco MD in 1992. His roll-call to fame has also included his tenure as chairman of the Fertilizer Association of India (FAI) and the prestigious International Fertilizer Industry Association.
8When industry observers opine that he manages Iffco with a passion that is rare among professional managers, it isn`t entirely a flush of hyperbole. Given the fact that his fertilizer plants are of varying vintage, he has managed to administer them with a competence which is unquestionably exceptional. He has an unusual ability to think laterally and out-of-the-box.
8He has skillfully managed to keep a disparate bunch of directors on the board of his cooperative -- truly reflecting the diversity of its many members -- to work according to his plan. Among his many contributions in the two dozen-odd years at the helm of Iffco, Awasthi is likely to be remembered by posterity not only for the financial and managerial prowess that he has brought to the cooperative but, more importantly, for his single-minded campaign to rid the cooperative of claustrophobic governmental control that has helped Iffco to prosper faster than it did before, and while consolidating its fertilizer business in India, Awasthi has looked outwards for investments without governmental fetters. A massive $860 million phosphoric acid joint venture in Jordan has began paying dividends while he has adroitly withdrawn from the problem ridden phosphoric acid producer, Industries Chimiques du Senegal, by inducting a private Indian player. Iffco`s innovative Kishan Sanchar Ltd provides 10 lakh farmers with voice messages and foots an equal number of calls a month, and is now expanding into data services for farmers. The cooperative has spawned a host of other companies, in sectors as diverse as insurance, commodity trading and captive jetties.
8Over the years, Awasthi has become indispensable to Iffco, so much so that he has earned an unanimous five year extension of his tenure recently. Not someone to sit on his laurels, he has drawn up a Vision 2020 statement that speaks of moving forward with vigour into the 21st century by investing in energy saving schemes in his fertilizer plants, agro processing plants, e-commerce and venture capital projects. There are no doubt challenges ahead as an aggressive new government begins demanding more commitment from the fertilizer industry than others regimes in the past, and newer players jostle for space along with him in the industry, but clearly Awasthi -- the aesthete and manger all bundled into one persona -- will know how to stay on top and in control, for he has indeed mastered the art of managing people and circumstances with amazing resilience. By Ramesh Joshi
