Sai ramakrishna karuturi biography examples in marathi
Ramakrishna Karuturi: Man behind Karuturi Global - world's largest producer of cut roses
The year-old mechanical engineer wanted to move beyond the company’s mainstay, floriculture.
Sai ramakrishna karuturi biography examples in hindi When Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi was looking to start a new business quickly, East Africa beckoned. He identified Kenya and Ethiopia for cultivating and exporting roses, bought , hectares of land, employed 10, people and today his company, Karuturi Global Ltd, produces around million stems a year and is widely recognized as the.
With the government of Ethiopia leasing out land at low cost to hi-tech foreign agriculture companies, there was indeed an opportunity in commercial farming; Ethiopia plans to transfer million ha of land to such investors for the next four years.
“We were looking at becoming one of the top five agro-commodities [rice, maize, etc] producers in the world and a significant player in the global food business,” says Karuturi who has steered Karuturi Global, once confined to Bangalore alone, to an international entity.
He started the company in , a few years after finishing his engineering degree from Bangalore University. But doing business isn’t as easy as pie in Ethiopia, where land is increasingly becoming a sensitive subject, and experts are divided on the extent of risk Karuturi has taken in the East African nation. Price of Risk The company is skating on thin ice, argues Bharat Kulkarni, an East Africabased consultant who advises Indian corporates looking to do business in Africa.
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Narendra Dokania, senior analyst of ICRA’s rating services, too, has a word of caution for Karuturi: “Although Karuturi enjoys the first-mover advantage compared with other Indian companies because of its good track record in East Africa, it would have to deal with local issues related to land, labour and climate.” Karuturi Global is the first Indian company to invest in commercial agriculture in Ethiopia.
He adds, “Logistics could also prove to be a challenge given the poor road connectivity and significant distance of Gambela, where Karuturi’s biggest land holding is located, from key markets and ports.
Sai ramakrishna karuturi biography examples Meet Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi whose improbable journey has taken him, at 43, from a family-run cable business in Bangalore to being one of the biggest landowners in the world. No mean achievement for a boy who was thrown out of six schools before landing on his feet at Mysore's Sri Rama Krishna Vidyashala.
However, if river transportation, as planned by the company, becomes a success, most of the transportation concerns could be resolved,” he says. Karuturi Global has a land bank of , ha of agricultural land — or eight times the size of Mumbai. Land was leased to the company by the government. Problems galore, warns Kulkarni.
“Karuturi will have to bring in a lot of heavy equipment, a lot of which cannot be classified as farm equipment and hence will not be duty-free,” he notes.
In fact, he is also sceptical about the “low cost” of land which is seen to work out to $ per ha for the company, with no lease rental being charged for the first few years.
“The actual expenses would be much more than that since the land has to be converted to farmlands, and that could be as high as $1, per ha.” For someone who has fought off numerous business challenges, Karuturi is unperturbed.
“We have finalised deals with four big agro companies in India for joint ventures for different crops that we are looking at growing — rice, maize, oil palm and sugarcane,” he says.
Sai ramakrishna karuturi biography examples in tamil
Meet Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi whose improbable journey has taken him, at 43, from a family-run cable business in Bangalore to being one of the biggest landowners in the world. No mean achievement for a boy who was thrown out of six schools before landing on his feet at Mysore's Sri Rama Krishna Vidyashala.The company has also tied up with a consortium of agro-entrepreneurs from Punjab who have now set up operations in Ethiopia as registered agri-consultants. Further, Karuturi is in talks with agri companies in Latin America for tie-ups.
For his part, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, president of Destimoney Securities, a Mumbai-headquartered broking firm, feels that companies such as Karuturi Global enjoy an edge in Ethiopia, which is emerging as the new frontier for Indian farmers.
“The company continues to enjoy the first-mover advantage in Ethiopia and is probably the second largest employer in the Gambela region after the government,” says Bandyopadhyay. Flowers Still Cash Cow Whatever that is, Karuturi isn’t worried at all — not even about the huge losses the company has incurred due to floods, which have hurt his first maize production targets.
After all, he has his core business to fall back on for the time being.
Floriculture accounts for 95% of the company’s revenues and 99% of its profits. It holds close to 10% share of the European market for roses. “The fact that the first agricultural crop has been destroyed by floods highlights the fact that floriculture will continue to remain the cash cow for some time to come,” says KK Mital, head of portfolio management services, at the Delhi-based Globe Capital Market.
Several agro-entrepreneurs from Punjab, too, are unfazed by local challenges.
“We moved to this country [Ethiopia] to explore the potential of farming expertise that our team has and matching it with the opportunities of large-scale farming,” says Puneet Singh Thind of Thind Farm, which has entered into an MoU with Karuturi to manage 2, acres of land.
Ruchi Soya Industriesalso has set up operations in Gambela for commercial cultivation of soyabean and palm oil.
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Karuturi says he feels completely at home in Ethiopia although his family shifted back to Bangalore some two-and-a-half years ago for his daughter’s pre-college education.
Everything is going fine for me, he says. We now have a plan to build a temple in Addis Ababa, Karuturi adds. Maybe he’s convinced that nothing works like faith.
( Originally published on Dec 04, )