The Hindu Business Line : Kannan Devan Hills Plantation co plans diversification

Corporate - Diversification
Agri-Biz & Commodities - Horticulture/Fruits & Vegetables

Kannan Devan Hills Plantation co plans diversification — To foray into horticulture, floriculture

C.J. Punnathara

Kochi April 4

IN a bid to stay afloat and grow in the fickle world of commodity production, the newly-formed Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Company plans to diversify its production base by foraying into horticulture, floriculture, rearing of medicinal and aromatic plants.

In his first interview after having taken over as the Managing Director, Mr T.V. Alexander, said diversified revenue streams were a must in today's world of sharp upsurges and downswings in the global commodity markets.

However, the core area of the company will continue to remain tea. The company had recently taken management control of 55,529 acres of tea plantations from Tata Tea.

A team from the Netherlands has already visited the region and ascertained that the upper elevations of Munnar was ideally suited to growing roses and had shown interest in setting up a floriculture project. Representatives from the company had also paid a return visit and plans for setting up a floriculture project were quite bright, Mr Alexander said.

As regards the medicinal and aromatic plants project, the company is in a very advanced stage of negotiations with an Indian company, which has a significant export market. At the end of successful round of talks, the company plans to enter into growing medicinal and aromatic plants in a big way.

In a radical shift from the past, the company also planned to introduce bottom-up management plan rather than the top-to-bottom hierarchical approach that is the norm of the plantation industry.

To make the new management structure effective, the base administrative unit will be narrowed down from an estate to a division, which on an average, comprises 100 acres of plantations.

A divisional administrative committee will be constituted to manage the day-to-day administrative functions of this core unit. The committee will have a predominant representation from the workers — two women and two men who will be elected.

An assistant manager will be the convenor of the committee, which has a field officer, an assistant field officer and an elected supervisor. The committee will meet once a week and review the performance of the previous week and chalk out plans for the week ahead, as well as review the performance parameters.

The next level in the administrative hierarchy would be estate consultative council, comprising workers who have been elected from the divisional committees, representative from the supervisors, representative from the assistant field officer, the field officer, medical representative etc.

The manager of the estate would be the convenor of the council, which will meet once a month. Based on the overall budget of the company, the council will make the budget and work plan of the estate.

The council will be overall charge of the estate, which usually has between 4 to 6 divisions.

The estate council would be reporting to the Central management committee, which will be convened by the managing director and compose whole time directors, workers representative on the director board, staff representative on the board and heads of key departments such as sales, production, human resources etc.

The company would also constitute a welfare committee that would look after the amenities of the workers such as quarters, water supply, electricity, health etc. Sixty per cent of the welfare committee would be constituted from the workers.

"Transparency will be the key word in all operations of the company," Mr Alexander said.

In active participation with the trade unions, the company is designing an incentive formula where better productivity will be rewarded.

Simultaneously, several agronomic measures are on the anvil to increase production. Better water harvesting techniques, improved planting material from high quality clones, which have been developed by the in-house R&D division, correction of soil deficiencies and time-bound soil development programmes are envisaged.

The company also plans to tap the national tea fund which is being set up for re-planting tea, to replace the existing old plants with new high yielding clones.

"Implementation of these schemes will make this one of the largest participant management companies in the world," Mr Alexander said.

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