Dhanjibhai Maksana could arguably be called the Willy Wonka of Surendranagar, a sleepy town in Gujarat some 160km from state capital Gandhinagar.
However, unlike the secretive nature of the character in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Maksana’s factory gates are open to everyone who wishes to visit, he says.
And while Wonka had the Oompa Loompas, Maksana, 65, says he offers jobs to all comers because extra hands are always required in areas such as packaging and so on.
His company, Makson Pharmaceuticals India Pvt. Ltd, has been making candies, lollipops and other sweets as a contract manufacturer for companies such as Nestle India Ltd, Lotte India Corp. Ltd, Cadbury India Ltd, Nutrine Confectionery Co. Ltd, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Dabur India Ltd and Cipla Ltd for several decades now.
Maksana says his firm is the largest contract manufacturer for branded confectionary in India, with an output of 150 tonnes of sweets daily and an annual turnover of at least `125 crore.
He now plans to set up a multi-product special economic zone (SEZ) that will house a greenfield manufacturing unit for producing candy, chocolates and other sweets.
The SEZ will also house other confectionary units, drawn by the prospect of tax and other incentives.
The group is in the process of setting up the tax-free enclave in Lakhtar, one of the most arid regions of Saurashtra. Group firm Makson
SEZ Pvt. Ltd, which has acquired around 2,000 acre of land, plans to spend `1,600 crore over the next 10 years to develop the project.
To start with, the SEZ will have a `100 crore factory for producing 300-400 tonnes of chocolates, toffees, candy and other confectionary daily.
Makson makes as much as 150 tonnes of confectionary every day, and around 50% of this consists of eclairs for companies such as Nutrine, Cadbury and Nestle. Other products include Polo mints and Vicks cough drops, apart from Strepsils for Boots, Hajmola for Dabur and even Iodex for GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
While the state government has cleared the SEZ proposal, Makson is awaiting central government clearances. Applications for setting up SEZs need to be made to the concerned state government and the Union government’s commerce department.
“Surendranagar is a backward area and I always wanted to do something for its development,” Maksana said. “This SEZ to be spread across 5,000ha will be for small manufacturers.”
He plans to use profits from the SEZ to create housing and other infrastructure facilities for the people working there. Maksana, who expects at least 5,000 jobs to be created at the SEZ, also plans a university built on 200 acre inside the enclave.
Agriculture and masonry are the main occupations of people living in Surendranagar, one of the largest producers of the Shankar variety of cotton and home to the first cotton-trading exchange in India.
With at least 80% of India’s candy and confectionary makers as his clients, Maksana is confident of attracting around 200 manufacturing units to the SEZ. India produces 5,000 tonnes of confectionary items daily and there is enough room for everyone to grow, he said.
Maksana’s initiation into the confectionary business began early, when he was 12 years old. He worked with his father for a company that used to make candy under the brand name of Prakash.
“Quality was our prime focus even then, and our products were sold at a price that was higher than Parle candy,” said Maksana. “We were, however, not very strong in marketing our products. In the early 1980s, we stopped our own business and entered into contract manufacturing for Procter and Gamble candies.”
Maksana combines a sweet tooth with a knack for complex machinery.
He produces candy for companies that fiercely compete with each other in the market place and claims to have been selling them at the most economical rates because his machinery is all self-designed.
The first candy machine that he built was based on an image he saw in a catalogue. In 1983, his success at indigenization was recognized when the company won the National Award for Import Substitution.
The group exports candy to developed markets such as Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Russia, Nepal and Bangladesh. It also has a gum base manufacturing plant, which caters to gum product makers in India and abroad, with at least 100 formulae that can be custom-made for different types of sweets.
Makson exports confectionery machinery to Algeria, Brazil, the UAE, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Indonesia and Mauritius. It has even supplied machinery for Procter and Gamble Co. plants in Nigeria and Kenya, Maksana says.
Makson currently exports around 70% of the machines that it builds. “We manufacture machines at one-tenth and in some cases even one-fifth of the price of imported ones,” he says.
Maksana’s love for machines also made him toy with the idea of designing a microlight plane that can travel at a speed of 200km per hour for as low as `3 lakh.
“It is easier to make such power gliders than an autorickshaw. It will save a great deal of time, while the fuel cost will be as much as one spends on a four-wheeler. The only glitch could be the pilot’s cost,” says Maksana. He discussed the idea of using such planes as public transport with Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, but could not proceed for regulatory reasons.
For the time being, he’s focusing on the SEZ and a new chocolate manufacturing unit at his existing plant in Surendranagar, which marks a diversification of his product portfolio into cocoa products for the first time, making him a more complete confectionary man.
Source : livemint.com