TATA Chemicals LTD

.Executive

summary:-

Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) is a global company with interests in businesses that focus on LIFE living, industrial and farming essentials. It is the world's second-largest producer of soda ash. With manufacturing facilities in India, UK, US and Kenya, TCL is the worlds most geographically diversified soda ash company, with an efficient supply chain that can service customers across the globe.Established in 1939 at Mithapur (in Gujarat, India), TCL is a part of the Tata group. It is a leading player in the agribusiness sector with a strong presence in crop nutrients (urea and phosphatic fertilisers) and crop protection products. The company is a pioneer and market leader in the Indian branded iodised salt segment through its pioneering brand Tata Salt.TCLs global soda ash capacity is around 5.5 million tonnes per annum, out of which 60 per cent capacity is from natural soda ash deposits at Wyoming in the US and Lake Magadi in Kenya. Along with soda ash (sodium carbonate), the company also manufactures sodium bicarbonate and bulk chemicals such as sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, and sodium tripoly phosphate (STPP). The company has extended its operations into the services sector and touches lives through applications in agriculture, animal nutrition, construction, consumer products, glass, metals, pharmaceuticals, soaps and detergents, and textiles and leather industries. Global reach: Since 2005 Tata Chemicals has adopted an internationalisation strategy. It acquired an equal partnership in Indo Maroc Phosphore SA (IMACID), along with Chambal Fertilisers and global phosphate major OCP of Morocco in that year. In early 2006, it completed the acquisition of UK-based Brunner Mond Group and its subsidiary, the Magadi Soda Company in Kenya.In 2007, it entered the fruits and vegetables distribution business by setting up Khet-Se Agriproduce India, a 50:50 joint venture in partnership with Total Produce of Ireland, the world's third-largest fresh produce distribution company. In 2008, Tata Chemicals acquired General Chemical Industrial Products, one of the largest soda ash manufacturers in the US. With this, TCL's global soda ash capability stands at around 5.5 million metric tonnes per annum. Innovation: TCL plans to leverage its expertise in chemicals and agri-businesses together with its in-house research capabilities to develop strengths in new businesses and sustainable technologies. The company set up the TCL Innovation Centre in 2004 to develop world-class R&D capability in nanotechnology and biotechnology, and is also working to build a significant presence in the biofuels sector. Its Innovation Centre is also working on technologies that can mitigate climate change through "green chemistry" and product offerings that will make a difference like flue gas treatment, carbon absorption and nano glass-coatings for insulation. Sustainable chemistry: Tata Chemicals is committed to meeting the highest standards of corporate governance and business practices. All of its activities integrate the principles of corporate sustainability. The company is a signatory to Responsible Care, a voluntary global initiative of the chemical industry that demonstrates allegiance to safety, health and environmental issues. Its Mithapur and Babrala plants have won the highest British Safety Council 5-star rating. Tata Chemicals works directly with farmers in India to help solve crop problems and enhance yields. The company has set up a network of Tata Kisan Sansars (farmer centres) in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Punjab, Haryana, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar. The network services around 22,000 villages, with access to over 3.5 million farmers.In 1980, Tata Chemicals set up a non-governmental organisation Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development (TCSRD) that works towards holistic community development, including managing

water, land and other natural resources, encouraging enterprise development, and promoting health and education. TCSRD's activities have been recognised at a national level. Tata Chemicals is also involved in efforts to preserve the biodiversity of land along the coastline and the nesting sites of migratory birds. TCL and Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) have signed an MoU for a conservation project that will create awareness and undertake research to save the endangered species of whale shark that visits the coastal shores of Gujarat.

Tata Chemicals broadly operates in three sectors living essentials (household products), industry essentials and farm essentials (crop nutrition and protection) giving it a wide and diverse customer base. The core concept behind its product and services portfolio is to provide inputs for better living.The companys sustainable approach to business has led it to work towards optimising the use of raw materials, resources and technology and creating a portfolio of products that find application across industries and consumers. It has taken several key steps to develop a high-tech and sustainable product portfolio by leveraging its business and scientific expertise.Tata Chemicals has established the TCL Innovation Centre in Pune with world-class R&D capabilities in the emerging areas of nanotechnology and biotechnology. TCL's Centre for Agriculture and Technology at Aligarh provides advice on practices and solutions related to farming and crop nutrition. The company has also entered into a joint venture with Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory in Singapore for the development of better varieties of seedlings and agronomic practices. Living essentials Basic products for daily living, such as salt, sodium bicarbonate or baking soda products, fresh produce and waterrelated products The companys foray into household and consumer necessities started with an idea using iodised salt to resolve health issues arising out of iodine deficiency in India. Tata Chemicals has launched a range of iodised salts in India and today is considered a business superbrand in Indian industry. Today, the Consumer Products Business (CPB) comprises branded iodised edible salt, sodium bicarbonate and water purifiers, among other offerings. Besides the iconic brand Tata Salt, the company's products include a new refined salt brand called I-Shakti; Tata Salt Lite (contains 15 per cent less sodium than ordinary salts and caters to health-conscious low-sodium salt users); and Topp Salt, a brand of edible salt created for export. I Shakti, a cooking soda, is marketed as a leavening agent.To leverage its reach with farmers and housewives, TCL started Khet-Se, a fresh fruit and vegetable distribution business in India, in 2007 as a 50:50 joint venture with Total Produce of Ireland. Total Produce is the third largest fruit and vegetable distribution company in the world and Europes largest fresh produce provider. The first Khet-Se centre has already opened in Punjab; the next will come up in Maharashtra. Khet-Se will source fruits and vegetables for the fruit and vegetable retailer through its conveniently located wholesale stores.Safe drinking water is still a pipe dream for the majority of Indias lower middle class and poor. TCL met this challenge by launching Tata Swach in December 2009. Tata Swach is a unique and innovative water purifier that combines low-cost ingredients such as rice husk ash with nano-technology. The product provides performance, convenience and, above all, affordability, and serves a basic human right of millions of consumers. Industry essentials Products that form essential inputs to diverse industries across the glass, detergents, mining and chemical processing sectors Soda ash, one of TCLs main products, finds use in several industries, including the manufacturing of glass, pulp and paper, detergents and industrial chemicals. TCLs customer base includes some of the worlds leading and most recognisable brands and companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Church & Dwight, Unilever, Saint Gobain, Pilkington, Asahi, Owens Illinois, Guardian, PPG, Vale, Xstrata and Pilkington.Tata Chemicals' journey started as a synthetic soda ash manufacturer at Mithapur, Gujarat. The salt works spread across 60sqkm can produce over 2 million tonnes of solar salt, the base raw material for almost all the 27 basic chemicals that the company produces. The Mithapur plant is the largest integrated salt works and inorganic chemicals complex in this part of the world. It has an installed capacity of 875,000 tpa -- about 34 per cent of the country's capacity -- making it one of the largest producers of synthetic soda ash in the world.The company's soda ash capacity took a significant leap in early 2006 when it completed the acquisition of the UK-based Brunner Mond Group, one of the worlds leading manufacturer of

associated alkaline products, and added manufacturing plants in Northwich in the UK and Lake Magadi in Kenya. Lake Magadi is a major alkaline evaporate deposit in Africas Great Rift Valley.In early 2008 TCL successfully completed the acquisition of US-based General Chemical Industrial Products (GCIP), providing access to some of the worlds largest and most economically recoverable trona ore deposits that are then converted to soda ash, and to manufacturing facilities located at Green River Basin in Wyoming. Along with soda ash, TCL also produces sodium bicarbonate, bulk chemicals such as sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, sodium tripoly phosphate (STPP), caustic soda, bromine-based products, chlorine based products, gypsum and cement. TCL's cement business grew out of a sustainability and environment activity; the cement plant at Mithapur was set up to consume the solid waste generated during the manufacture of soda ash. By instituting a more efficient filtration process, TCL has worked towards capturing by-products and effluents of the soda ash manufacturing process. The thousands of tonnes of effluent, thus diverted from negatively loading the environment, have been converted into a usable commodity cement that is used for high quality construction in western India. Farm essentials Farm inputs needed to improve crop health and productivity, such as fertilisers, pesticides, specialty nutrients, seeds and agri-services The crop nutrition and agri-business unit has a presence across three key agro-nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Nitrogenous fertiliser (urea) is manufactured at Babrala in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh; phosphatic fertilisers, DAP and complexes are manufactured at Haldia in West Bengal in eastern India; MOP is imported.Currently, TCL is a dominant player in the crop nutrition segment and its subsidiary Rallis India is a leader in the crop protection industry. Through Rallis, TCL is looking to enhance value creation as well as access to business synergies in the crop nutrition and protection sectors, and thus strengthen its presence in the entire agri-input space.The company also helps small farmers enhance farm yields by providing end-to-end solutions through a network of Tata Kisan Sansars (farmers centres) in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand. Tata Kisan Sansars are one-stop resource centres; they stock seeds, pesticides and fertilisers; lease out farm equipment and implements to farmers who cannot afford to buy expensive modern machinery; provide agronomy services like soil testing and mapping and fertiliser testing; arrange credit and crop insurance, and even provide buyback facilities. New business Tata Chemicals is leveraging its expertise in chemicals and agri-businesses to develop strengths in new sustainable technologies in the nanotechnology and biotechnology space. The company is actively working to build a significant presence in the biofuels sector. Its Innovation Centre is working on technologies that can mitigate climate change through green chemistry and product offerings that will make a difference. Biofuels In 2007, Tata Chemicals decided to enter the biofuels business in India. A 30KL per day bioethanol facility, using sweet sorghum as feedstock, has been set up at Nanded, Maharashtra. Arrangements have been made with farmers in districts in and around Nanded, for growing sweet sorghum. The plant has proved the technical viability of bioethanol production based on sweet sorghum. The company has also undertaken field research on Jatropha, a non-edible tree crop for biodiesel production. Tata Chemicals has set up a research farm in Aurangabad and has started varietal trials for developing a package of practice. The company has also set up multi location trials for Jatropha in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. TCL Innovation Centre Tata Chemicals Innovation Centre was set up with the objective of developing world-class R&D facility working on more than 20 projects in the areas of nanotechnology and biotechnology. It has now moved from being TCL-centric to a having a much wider base of clients, from the Tata group as well as external companies. The team of scientists at the centre is working in the following areas:

Advanced materials Specialty chemicals Green chemistry and catalysis , Alternate energy Nutraceuticals .

Advanced materials
Focus areas: Nano materials, metals, ceramics, nano powder, nano composites , nano coatings, customisation for both structural and functional applications Capabilities: Synthesis of nano materials Surface functionalisation Tailored nanostructure Nano material synthesis through bio routes Development of nano material scalable processes Facilities: Wet chemistry lab for nano material synthesis Structural spectroscopic characterisation Tie up with leading national and international, government and industrial research centres for testing and synthesis facilities

Biochemicals and metabolites Focus areas: Enzymes, biopolymers and ingredients, platform chemicals, surfactants and fine chemicals Capabilities:
Isolation, screening and characterisation of the micro organisms Recombinant DNA technology: Gene cloning and expression of genes in bacteria for enzymes and specialty chemicals Strain improvement using genetic engineering

Protein purification and characterisation

Facilities:
All basic microbiology facilities Facilities for molecular biology and strain improvement (PCR machine, electroporator, DNA and protein electrophoresis units, DNA and protein blotting apparatus, GEL documentation system etc.)

Green chemistry and catalysis, Alternate energy

Focus areas: Sustainable and green chemical transformations, development of catalyst and catalytic transformation for clean fuels and chemicals, bio fuels ethanol, bio butanol from variety of agricultural wastes and residues, technologies for bio diesel, solar energy, fuel cells, bio-hydrogen and value addition of by-products thereof. Capabilities: Catalyst preparation Catalytic reactions Surface and chemical characterisation Bio chemical engineering Fermentation design and process development Anaerobic fermentation Process intensification Scale up Downstream processing Facilities: High pressure batch autoclaves Vapour phase high temperature and pressure continuous reactors Analytical equipments for characterisation Fermentors Ultra filtration Chromatographic separations High pressure autoclaves Proprietary (Novel and IC designed) equipment

Alternate energy
Focus areas: Bio fuels: Ethanol and Biobutanol from variety of agricultural wastes and residues. Technologies for Bio-diesel, solar energy, fuel cells and bio-hydrogen, and value added by-products.

Capabilities: Bio chemical engineering Fermentation design and process development Anaerobic fermentation Process intensification Scale up Downstream processing Facilities: Fermentors Ultra filtration Chromatographic separations High pressure autoclaves Proprietary (Novel and IC designed) equipment Projects under completion: Bio-ethanol Bio-diesel

Nutraceuticals
Focus areas: Oligosaccharides, sweeteners, anti-obesity products through green routes Capabilities: Microbiology Fermentation Enzyme extraction and purification Immobilisation Biosynthesis of chemicals using enzymes Facilities: Fermentors Down stream processing spray dryer, ion exchange chromatography, HPLC, lypholyzer, ultra and nano filtration

Centre for Agriculture and Techonology (CAT) The CAT has been set up in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh to provide advice to farmers on farming and crop nutrition practices and solutions. This centre is staffed with experienced scientists who are working in various areas of agritechnology. Specific projects have been undertaken on determining area and crop specific nutrition products and

combinations, soil health tracking through indexing etc.The CAT is expected to provide TCL a competitive advantage in the future and will provide a very strong base for the growth of the company in its customised fertiliser business, specialty crop nutrients business and agribusiness

Present situation:2001

Milestones achieved by the company

Production severely affected due to earthquake on January 26, 2001 and the fire in the power plant on March 2, 2001. Cement sales taken over from ACC Limited. 2002 Mithapur is awarded ISO-14001 certification. The Chemicals Division at Mithapur is awarded the ISO-9001-2000 Migration certificate. 2003 Tata Salt ranked No. 1 Food brand in Brand Equity Survey of India's most trusted brands. Babrala fertiliser plant registered with British Safety Council. New initiatives taken up to consolidate and drive growth in the core business. Chemical plant at Mithapur bags 'Certificate of Honour' and saltworks awarded 'Certificate of Merit' by Gujarat State Safety Council. Mithapur becomes the first industrial township to be awarded the ISO 14001 certificate. The fertiliser plant gets ISO-14001 and OHSAS-18001 certification. 2004 ISO 14001 certification for the Babrala Township for implementation of Environment Management System. Certification audit conducted by KPMG, India. Tata Chemicals set up the Innovation Centre to develop world-class R&D capability in the emerging areas of nanotechnology and biotechnology. 2005 First step towards internationalisation. TCL acquires an equal partnership in Indo Maroc Phosphore SA (IMACID) along with Chambal Fertilisers and global phosphate major, OCP of Morocco. 2006 TCL completes acquisition of UK-based Brunner Mond Group, one of the world's leading manufacturers soda ash and associated alkaline products. 2007 Khet Se Agriproduce set up as a 50:50 joint venture with Total Produce, Ireland, the third largest fruits and vegetable distribution company in the world. 2008 TCL acquires US-based General Chemical Industrial Products (GCIP). Becomes worlds second largest soda ash manufacturer.

2009 Tata Chemicals Limited, UREA division achieves RC 14001 - 2005 Certification TCL has been certified under SA 8000:2001 standard for the Mithapur, Babrala and Haldia sites by RINA India Pvt Ltd.

TATA Chemicals current situation in various fields:

Agriculture
In India, agriculture constitutes one quarter of the Indian economy. More significant, it employs two-thirds of the nation's workforce and feeds a population of one billion people. Tata Chemicals believes that empowering farmers, enriching the land and enhancing agricultural productivity are key factors to the nation's prosperity. Tata Chemicals touches lives in agriculture through several ways: its basket of crop nutrition products, its Tata Kisan Sansar network, and its fresh produce sourcing and distribution business, Khet-Se Agriproduce. Fertilisers In India Tata Chemicals is present in all three crop nutrition groups through its fertiliser product base that spans: Urea (a nitrogenous fertiliser) DAP (contains both nitrogen and phosphorus) NPK complexes (contains all three nutrients) SSP (phosphorus based) Imported MOP (potassium based fertilisers) Organic manure or fertilisers Specialty fertilisers (calcium nitrate and zinc sulphate) Tata Kisan Sansar The Tata Kisan Sansar (TKS) is a network of nearly 600 farmer resource centres that caters to more than 3.5 million farmers in 22000 villages in the northern part of India. The centres are one-stop solution shops that provide farmers access to a wide range of agricultural inputs such as vital fertilisers, seeds, and pesticides; agricultural services such as soil testing, crop information, and credit and insurance facilities; and IT-enabled market information. The objective of the TKS network is to enable and empower the farmer in creating and generating more value for farm produce by providing information on new and improved agronomic practices and by facilitating better and more efficient use of agricultural inputs. Khet-Se Agriproduce Khet-Se Agriproduce is a joint venture between Tata Chemicals and Total Produce Inc of Ireland that sources fresh vegetables and fruits directly from farmers and distributes to small retailers, wholesalers and institutional buyers through its conveniently located wholesale stores. The company offers hygienically handled, high quality produce which is delivered absolutely fresh to its customers.

Animal nutrition

The vacuum salt and sodium bicarbonate manufactured by Tata Chemicals are the trusted choice of farmers and dairy owners for cattle and poultry feed. Vacuum salt This salt forms a vital component of cattle licks, which provide much-needed salt and minerals to dairy livestock and supplement their normal diet. Cattle licks are available either as plain salt blocks or mineralised salt blocks. Plain salt blocks comprise only salt, while mineralised salt blocks also contain essential nutrients such as cobalt, zinc, iron, copper, manganese and iodine. The supplements in mineralised salt blocks help enhance the milk production in milch cattle and keeps them healthy by regulating their metabolism. TCL's vacuum salt is almost free from extraneous matter. It is edible common salt, manufactured by evaporating sea brine in steam-heated vacuum evaporators. It can be dissolved very quickly due to its fine crystalline structure and is more freely available in salting-out processes. Sodium bicarbonate TCL's refined sodium bicarbonate is ideally suited for poultry feed and diet for dairy animals. It is of particular value as a non-chloride source of sodium in poultry diets. Bicarbonate is also essential for strengthening eggshell quality under intensive production systems. When added to diets for dairy animals, sodium bicarbonate effectively counters the acidity of silage- and cereal-based concentrates, maintaining feed pH at its optimum level.

Construction
Builders, architects and masons know that if the cement they use is not of the required standards, their buildings will suffer from seepage in the first monsoon after construction. Tata Chemicals manufactures three varieties of cement under the brand name Shudh Cement: Ordinary Portland Cement (grade 53) Masonry Cement All Tata Chemicals' cement products are made in a 1,500 tonnes per day capacity plant with state-of-the-art technology, which includes quality control at every stage of the production process with an online x-ray analyser. This ensures a high level of consistency of quality in the manufacturing process. Shudh Cement has already acquired a five per cent share of the cement market in Gujarat despite tough competition from its better-established competitors. It has been recognised in the market as a superior product, ideally suited for quality constructions. Shudh Cement far exceeds the quality norms and specifications prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards

Consumer products
Tata Chemicals is the market leader in packaged salts in India with more than half the total market consuming Tata brands. The reason: Tata Salt and its fellow brands go far beyond taste to target health initiatives such as iodine deficiency and low sodium requirements. Tata Salt has won accolades as India's most trusted food brand for several years. New brands I-Shakti and Tata Salt Lite are also creating waves in the market. Iodised salt Tata Salt, the flagship product of TCL's food-additives division, is the top-selling branded salt in India, with around 60per cent share of the market. TCL's state-of-the-art production processes ensure that Tata Salt arrives in your kitchen

and on your dining table untouched by human hand. The company is committed to providing a pure, proven, highquality product. In fact, Tata Salt has been identified as a Superbrand from among 800 shortlisted brands. Because of its purity and reliable quality, Tata Salt is the favoured choice of housewives, hotels and restaurants, and manufacturers of packaged snacks, colas and salted snacks. The company also recently launched its Topp Salt brand in the Middle East. Vacuum evaporated, super refined and iodine-enriched, Topp Salt has been introduced in Dubai, and will move on to Abu Dhabi and Sharjah to cover the entire United Arab Emirates. The company also plans a rollout in Oman, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Tata Salt Lite is a new low sodium salt launched by Tata Chemicals that has high health benefits. I-Shakti is another salt brand that has been well-received in the market. Vacuum salt The purity of TCL's vacuum salt makes it an effective replacement for solar salt in all applications. It is also the preferred brand for manufacturers of papad-khar. Sodium bicarbonate Sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, is used as a 'raising agent' in a wide range of bakery products. TCL's refined baking soda offers improved texture in cakes, biscuits and a number of other confectionery products. Because of its superior quality, TCL's sodium bicarbonate is the product of choice for manufacturers of food-grade baking powder and self-raising flours. Cooking soda Tata Chemicals has launched a branded cooking soda sold in small, single-use sachets under the brand name Tata Samunder Cooking Soda. Cooking soda is an ingredient already familiar to Indian consumers but so far has only been available in an unbranded form and is purchased either loose or in unmarked plastic pouches. Tata Samunder Cooking Soda will create a more evolved and quality-conscious market for this product, in much the same way as Tata Salt did in the early 1980s. Defined as a value for money offering, Samunder refined food grade soda bicarbonate (NaHCO3) is pure and unadulterated, and is the first branded food grade sachet cooking soda in the country.

Pharmaceuticals
The sodium bicarbonate manufactured by Tata Chemicals is a product that meets the pharmaceutical industry's high standards in drugs and dental medicine. Sodium bicarbonate is a vital ingredient in the production of over-the-counter drugs such as effervescent antacids, analgesic tablets and powders, toothpaste and antacid gel formulations. In addition, sodium bicarbonate in the form of an effervescent solution is also effective in cleaning dentures. High-purity sodium bicarbonate is also used as an alkali in the pharmaceutical industry. TCL's sodium bicarbonate, when further processed, meets the stringent quality criteria demanded by the pharmaceutical industry. The company has, over the years, formed a reliable bond with such processors for supplying them sodium bicarbonate of the highest quality. Another TCL product that finds applications in pharmaceuticals is pure salt.

Soaps and detergents

The soaps and detergents industry is a major customer of the soda ash manufactured by Tata Chemicals.

Soda ash is used as a builder or filler, to deliver a smoother surface in the formulation of soaps, detergents and other cleaning compounds. It is also used as an alkali in pH adjustment. In addition, soda ash is used to manufacture ultramarine, which gives white clothes a sparkling look. Shampoos use soda ash as a pH modifier, while soda ash precipitate is used as a soft abrasive in toothpaste. Detergents require light soda ash with chloride percentages of 0.4 to 1.0 per cent. The bulk density of this soda ash ensures volume benefits, while the low chloride content makes it ideal for use in washing machines. In the detergent manufacturing process, soda ash can be hydrated to carry water as an inexpensive filler and to enhance the storage and dissolving properties of the detergent. Soda ash is used in a slew of laundry and cleaning compound formulations: as a builder to emulsify oil stains, to reduce the deposit of dirt during washing and rinsing, to provide alkalinity for cleaning, and to soften laundry water. Additionally, soda ash is a component of sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP), another major builder in detergent formulations. In powdered laundry detergent, soda ash conditions the water and enhances the processing and performance of formulated cleaning products.

Objectives:These are the principles and values that govern Tata Chemicals. Mission Serving society through science Vision We shall be amongst premier chemical companies by: Leveraging science to deliver new and innovative offerings Enhancing value to our customers Delivering superior returns to our shareholders Leading in corporate sustainability Nurturing innovation, learning through diversity and team work amongst employees Values Integrity Safety Excellence Care Innovation

Management Research:Ratan Tata, Chairman

Ratan N Tata has been Chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, since 1991. He is the chairman of Tata Chemicals Ltd, along with several

other Tata companies, including Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power, Tata Tea, Indian Hotels, Tata Teleservices and Tata AutoComp Systems. During his tenure, the Groups revenues have grown over ten-fold to annualised Group revenues of $62.5 billion. Mr Tata joined the Tata Group in December 1962. After serving in various companies, he was appointed director-incharge of The National Radio & Electronics Company Limited (NELCO) in 1971. In 1981, he was named chairman of Tata Industries, the Groups other holding company, where he was responsible for transforming it into a Group strategy think-tank, and a promoter of new ventures in high technology businesses. He is also the chairman of two of the largest private sector promoted philanthropic trusts in India. Mr Tata is associated with various organisations in India and abroad. He is chairman of the Government of Indias Investment Commission and a member of the Prime Ministers Council on Trade and Industry, the National Hydrogen Energy Board and the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council. Mr Tata also serves on the International Investment Council set up by the president of the Republic of South Africa and the UK Prime Ministers Business Council for Britain. He is a member of the International Advisory Council of Singapores Economic Development Board, the Asia-Pacific Advisory Committee to the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange and of the international advisory boards of the Mitsubishi Corporation, the American International Group, JP Morgan Chase and Rolls Royce. He also serves on the boards of Fiat SpA and Alcoa. Mr Tata is president of the court of the Indian Institute of Science and chairman of the Council of Management of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He is a member of the board of trustees of Cornell University and the University of Southern California and of the Foundation Board of the Ohio State University. He is also a member of the Global Business Council on HIV/AIDS and the Programme Board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's India AIDS Initiative. Mr Tata received a Bachelor of Science degree in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962 and worked briefly with Jones and Emmons in Los Angeles before returning to India later that year. He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1975. The Government of India honoured Mr Tata with its second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2008. Earlier, in 2000, he had been awarded the Padma Bhushan. He has also been conferred an honorary doctorate in business administration by the Ohio State University, an honorary doctorate in technology by the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, an honorary doctorate in science by the University of Warwick, and an honorary fellowship by the London School of Economics.

R Gopalakrishnan, vice chairman

R Gopalakrishnan is executive director of Tata Sons, vice chairman of Tata Chemicals and chairman of Rallis India and of Advinus Therapeutics. He is a director on the boards of several Tata companies, among them Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Teleservices. A key member of the Tata Group Corporate Centre, Mr Gopalakrishnan plays a vital role in providing direction and impetus to the Group's forays into potentially viable areas of the new economy. Mr Gopalakrishnan joined Hindustan Lever (now Hindustan Unilever) as a management trainee in 1967. In 1987, he joined the companys management committee as executive director of exports. In 1991, he was appointed chairman of

Unilever Arabia, based in Jeddah, to establish and manage Unilever's consumer products business in Arab countries.

On his return to India in 1995, Mr Gopalakrishnan was appointed managing director of Brooke Bond Lipton. After the company's merger with HLL, he was designated vice chairman of Hindustan Lever. After 31 years with Hindustan Lever, Mr Gopalakrishnan joined Tata Sons in September 1998 as executive director. A graduate in physics from Calcutta University, Mr Gopalakrishnan also has a degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He has been president of the All India Management Association and is involved with education through his board memberships of a school and two management colleges. Mr Gopalakrishnan is the author of The Case of the Bonsai Manager, published by Penguin India in 2007.

R Mukundan, managing director

Ramakrishnan Mukundan is the managing director of Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL), and was the executive director of the company. Prior to that, he was the executive vice president (chemicals) and was responsible for the chemicals business and consumer products business of TCL and its subsidiaries. He joined TCL in 2001 and led various functions like strategy and business development, corporate quality, corporate planning, and manufacturing before taking over as the chief operating officer of the chemicals business of the company. He played an active role in the TCL transformation efforts in 2002, and also in the growth of domestic business as well as acquisition of new facilities in Brunner Mond (UK), Magadi Soda (Kenya) and General Chemicals (US). Mr Mukundan has been a member playing decisive role in several industry forums like Indian Chemical Council, past executive member of Automotive Components Manufacturers Association, past president of Alkali Manufacturers Association of India, CII Chemical Industry forum. An engineer from IIT Roorkee, Mr Mukundan, 42, joined the Tata Administrative Service (TAS) in 1990 after completing MBA from Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), New Delhi and worked with Tata AutoComp Systems and Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL). He is an alumnus of Harvard Business Schools advanced management programme. Mr Mukundan lives in Mumbai with his wife Sheila, a doctor, and son Siddharth who goes to school. He is an avid reader, traveller, and a fitness enthusiast.

PK Ghose, executive director and CFO

Prashant Kumar Ghose is the executive director and CFO of Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL). He was the executive vice president and chief financial officer of the company responsible for treasury, accounting, taxation, strategic finance, secretarial, and information technology. He started his career with Tata Steel in 1973 and has held several important positions in the company before becoming the chief financial controller (corporate) of the company in 2001. He was elevated as the chief of strategic finance of Tata Steel later during that year. After a successful stint at Jamshedpur, Mr Ghose joined TCL as the CFO in 2002. Mr Ghose was awarded the CFO of the Year (cost optimisation) in 2003, and CFO of

the year in 2006 for Deal of the Year. Mr Ghose, 58, is a graduate in commerce and a member of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants (ICWA) of India and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced International General Management programme of CEDEP, France. He lives in Mumbai with his son Saurabh, who is a banker, and daughter Shreya, who is studying business management. Mr Ghose is an avid cricketer and photographer. Directors Prasad R Menon Dr Yoginder K Alagh Dr Y S P Thorat Nusli N Wadia Dr M S Ananth Nasser Munjee E A Kshirsagar

The business of service

With years of expertise in the agri-business space, Tata Chemicals has extended its business operations into the services sector in India. Tata Kisan Sansar Tata Kisan Sansar outlets form a network of franchised retail outlets in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Punjab, Haryana, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar. The network of agri-service centers, serve an area of around 22,000 villages, with access to over 3.5 million farmers. The centres are one-stop resource centres they stock seeds, pesticides and fertilisers, lease out farm equipment and implements, and provide services such as soil testing and mapping, fertiliser mapping, credit finance, crop insurance, etc.

Khet Se Tata Chemicals, through its new business venture Khet-Se Agriproduce India, has set up state-of-the-art facilities for fresh fruit and vegetables sourcing, packaging and distribution. The first centre has already opened in Punjab; the next will come up in Maharashtra. Khet-Se will source fruits and vegetables for the fruit and vegetable retailer through its conveniently located wholesale stores. The organisation will cater to customers such as small retailers, organised retailers, and the institutional segments comprising of hotels, restaurants and caterers. Khet-Se offers hygienically handled, high quality produce, which is delivered absolutely fresh to its customers viz, Bharti Wal-Mart India Pvt Limited Spencers, Namdhari Fresh Limited.

Call centres Tata Chemicals has set up business process outsourcing (BPO) centres in Mithapur, Gujarat and Babrala, Uttar Pradesh. These centres are unique in the sense that they are based in rural India, and thus provide employment and self-sustaining community development opportunities to the communities of these areas.

The centres, called Uday, are an initiative of the Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development (TCSRD), a community initiative arm of TCL. In areas where job opportunities were close to zero,Uday, the company's rural BPO, along with SerWizSol at Mithapur and Babrala has been providing job opportunities to 206 rural youth and has brought sunshine in their life.

Products:Tata Chemicals' products find use in a wide range of pharmaceutical, food processing and industrial applications that touch our lives on a daily basis. From food processing and fresh produce, to detergents and drugs, Tata Chemicals produces high quality chemicals and ingredients that go a long way to improving the quality of our lives. Living essentials Cooking soda : Tata Samunder Fresh produce Salt: Tata Salt, I-Shakti, Tata Salt Lite Tata Swach Industry essentials Soda ash Sodium bicarbonate Alkakarb Chemicals: Caustic soda, chlorine based products, bromine based products, gypsum, phosphoric and sulphuric acids Sodium tripolyphosphate Cement: Tata Shudh Farm essentials Customised fertilisers Fertilisers: Tata Paras urea, DAP, NPK, SSP New business Biofuels

Bio fuels
Tata Chemicals' biofuels business has grown out of its extensive expertise in chemicals manufacturing, the agriculture and crop-nutrition space, and its research capability through the Innovation Centre. Its product portfolio includes Bioethanol Biodiesel The business is currently focused on working with sustainably grown feedstock for first generation bioethanol and biodiesel. The bioethanol plant in Nanded, Maharashtra, is a 30KL/day facility using sweet sorghum as feedstock for bioethanol, and sweet sorghum bagasse as fuel for generating power. Sweet sorghum which contains 10-12 per cent

sugar content can be crushed and processed like sugar cane and has the added advantages of reaching maturity within a 110-day period and requires only one-third quantity of water for cultivation. For biodiesel, the company is currently focused on identifying, developing and cultivating superior varieties of jatropha as feedstock. TCL has also recently acquired an equity stake in JOil (Singapore), a jatropha seedling company founded by Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, that will set up tissue culture labs in India and other locations to develop jatropha seedlings using micro-propagation techniques. Tata Chemicals will also have exclusive marketing rights for JOils jatropha seedlings in India and East Africa. Apart from this, the company is actively involved in biofuels research. TCL's Innovation Centre is working on advanced technologies including second generation biofuels, technology for better processing of feedstock and on by-products. The company plans to utilise the Nanded facility as a pilot plant for the research and development of cellulose-based bioethanol and biobutanol. TCL is also a part of ICRISATs Sweet Sorghum Ethanol Research Consortium (SSERC).

Market Analysis:Tata Chemicals (TCL) was recognised as the second runner-up at Business world-FICCI-SEDF Corporate Social Responsibility Award 2006 ceremony held at the FICCI Auditorium, New Delhi on May 7, 2007. Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the honourable president of India, gave away the awards. The award recognises and applauds the contribution and achievements of corporates in the area of corporate social responsibility in India. Business & Community Foundation (BCF), an NGO, visited all the short listed companies for 'on-site verifications'. A jury comprising of eminent personalities like Dr Adid Hussian, Justice Leela Seth and others made the final selections for the award. Homi Khusrokhan, managing director, TCL, said, "Concern for all our stakeholders is central to the value system at Tata Chemicals and the company has always prided itself on its relationship with the communities that it serves. We have a stated CSR policy that is strictly followed. The policy translates into various developmental initiatives that we undertake for our employees, the environment and the communities around our plants. Additionally, volunteerism is encouraged and recognised throughout the organisation. This also helps us to fulfill our CSR goals

TATA CHEMICALS BUSINESS UNITS AND GROWTH STRATEGY Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) is a global company with interests in chemicals, cropnutrition and consumer products and serves a diverse set of customers across fivecontinents. Established in 1939 at Mithapur, the Company today has the worlds secondlargest capacity in soda ash and is a pioneer and market leader in the Indian brandediodized salt segment. TCL is one of Indias leading producers of nitrogenous andphosphatic fertilizers in the private sector and markets a range of crop nutritionofferings under Tata Paras brand. TCL has its manufacturing facilities across four continents. With manufacturingfacilities in India, UK, Kenya and USA, TCL is the worlds most geographicallydiversified soda ash company with almost two-thirds of capacity comprising natural sodaash giving it global competitive advantage. TCL is also the fourth largest manufacturer ofsodium bicarbonate in the world. Our nitrogenous fertilizer plant at Babrala is thecountrys most energy efficient fertilizer unit. Phosphatic fertilizers aremanufactured at Haldia. In the industrial chemicals business, the focus is on defending share in the soda ashmarket with simultaneous efforts towards greater value extraction from our assets. Whiledemand and prices have shown an upward trend in 2010, overall sentiment remains cautiousand we continue our efforts towards improving the efficiency of our operating sites.During the year, our North American operations competed aggressively with Chinese materialwhile we defended our positions in the Indian and European markets. Operations atDelfzijl, Netherlands were discontinued with a view on long-term sustainability of ourbusiness. Within the crop nutrition and agri-business, the urea business achieved record salesalong with continuing improvement in operational efficiency. We were able to maintainphosphatics sales volumes at last years levels despite operations being adverselyaffected by disturbances in Haldia. Our agri-business initiative Tata Kisan Sansarcontinues to expand into new geographies increasing its footprint to 673 stores, up from580 last year. Besides continued progress in the above, TCL is poised to start productionat its pioneering customized fertilizer plant at Babrala this year. Also in 2009, TCLacquired controlling stake (50.06%) in Rallis India Ltd., which is a leading player in thecrop protection business, thereby strengthening our basket of offerings to the farmer.Overall, TCL intends to increase its presence in the Indian farm while continuing effortsto secure critical inputs for the fertilizer business. On the consumer products front, TCLcontinues to leverage its strong brand equity and distribution network in the saltbusiness. Tata Salt regained the No. 1 Most Trusted Food Brand label in India. IShakti,launched in 2007-08 is already close to becoming the second largest national packaged saltbrand in the country. Overall our brands achieved a market share of over 59% amongnational salt brands. During the year, TCL also launched its latest innovative offering,the low cost water purifier TATA Swach, based on a new technology developed with thesupport of TCL Innovation Center. INORGANIC CHEMICALS SEGMENT TCLs Chemicals Business consists of Industrial Chemicals business and ConsumerProducts business. Industrial Chemicals The Industrial Chemicals business manufactures and sells soda ash (Na2CO3), sodiumbicarbonate (NaHCO3) and other industrial chemicals such as STPP and cement. Of these,soda ash and sodium bicarbonate are products in which the Company is a global player.Additionally, operations in India produce STPP, gypsum and cement, and in

Customers catering: Tata Chemicals broadly operates in three sectors living essentials (household products), industry essentials and farm essentials (crop nutrition and protection) giving it a wide and diverse customer base. The core concept behind its product and services portfolio is to provide inputs for better living. The companys sustainable approach to business has led it to work towards optimising the use of raw materials, resources and technology and creating a portfolio of products that find application across industries and consumers. It has taken several key steps to develop a high-tech and sustainable product portfolio by leveraging its business and scientific expertise. Tata Chemicals has established the TCL Innovation Centre in Pune with world-class R&D capabilities in the emerging areas of nanotechnology and biotechnology. TCL's Centre for Agriculture and Technology at Aligarh provides advice on practices and solutions related to farming and crop nutrition. The company has also entered into a joint venture with Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory in Singapore for the development of better varieties of seedlings and agronomic practices.

Living essentials Basic products for daily living, such as salt, sodium bicarbonate or baking soda products, fresh produce and waterrelated products The companys foray into household and consumer necessities started with an idea using iodised salt to resolve health issues arising out of iodine deficiency in India. Tata Chemicals has launched a range of iodised salts in India and today is considered a business superbrand in Indian industry. Today, the Consumer Products Business (CPB) comprises branded iodised edible salt, sodium bicarbonate and water purifiers, among other offerings. Besides the iconic brand Tata Salt, the company's products include a new refined salt brand called I-Shakti; Tata Salt Lite (contains 15 per cent less sodium than ordinary salts and caters to health-conscious low-sodium salt users); and Topp Salt, a brand of edible salt created for export. I Shakti, a cooking soda, is marketed as a leavening agent. To leverage its reach with farmers and housewives, TCL started Khet-Se, a fresh fruit and vegetable distribution business in India, in 2007 as a 50:50 joint venture with Total Produce of Ireland. Total Produce is the third largest fruit and vegetable distribution company in the world and Europes largest fresh produce provider. The first Khet-Se centre has already opened in Punjab; the next will come up in Maharashtra. Khet-Se will source fruits and vegetables for the fruit and vegetable retailer through its conveniently located wholesale stores. Safe drinking water is still a pipe dream for the majority of Indias lower middle class and poor. TCL met this challenge by launching Tata Swach in December 2009. Tata Swach is a unique and innovative water purifier that combines low-cost ingredients such as rice husk ash with nano-technology. The product provides performance, convenience and, above all, affordability, and serves a basic human right of millions of consumers.

Industry essentials Products that form essential inputs to diverse industries across the glass, detergents, mining and chemical processing sectors Soda ash, one of TCLs main products, finds use in several industries, including the manufacturing of glass, pulp and paper, detergents and industrial chemicals. TCLs customer base includes some of the worlds leading and most recognisable brands and companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Church & Dwight, Unilever, Saint Gobain, Pilkington, Asahi, Owens Illinois, Guardian, PPG, Vale, Xstrata and Pilkington.

Tata Chemicals' journey started as a synthetic soda ash manufacturer at Mithapur, Gujarat. The salt works spread across 60sqkm can produce over 2 million tonnes of solar salt, the base raw material for almost all the 27 basic chemicals that the company produces. The Mithapur plant is the largest integrated salt works and inorganic chemicals complex in this part of the world. It has an installed capacity of 875,000 tpa -- about 34 per cent of the country's capacity -- making it one of the largest producers of synthetic soda ash in the world. The company's soda ash capacity took a significant leap in early 2006 when it completed the acquisition of the UKbased Brunner Mond Group, one of the worlds leading manufacturer of associated alkaline products, and added manufacturing plants in Northwich in the UK and Lake Magadi in Kenya. Lake Magadi is a major alkaline evaporate deposit in Africas Great Rift Valley. In early 2008 TCL successfully completed the acquisition of US-based General Chemical Industrial Products (GCIP), providing access to some of the worlds largest and most economically recoverable trona ore deposits that are then converted to soda ash, and to manufacturing facilities located at Green River Basin in Wyoming. Along with soda ash, TCL also produces sodium bicarbonate, bulk chemicals such as sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, sodium tripoly phosphate (STPP), caustic soda, bromine-based products, chlorine based products, gypsum and cement. TCL's cement business grew out of a sustainability and environment activity; the cement plant at Mithapur was set up to consume the solid waste generated during the manufacture of soda ash. By instituting a more efficient filtration process, TCL has worked towards capturing by-products and effluents of the soda ash manufacturing process. The thousands of tonnes of effluent, thus diverted from negatively loading the environment, have been converted into a usable commodity cement that is used for high quality construction in western India.

Farm essentials Farm inputs needed to improve crop health and productivity, such as fertilisers, pesticides, specialty nutrients, seeds and agri-services The crop nutrition and agri-business unit has a presence across three key agro-nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Nitrogenous fertiliser (urea) is manufactured at Babrala in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh; phosphatic fertilisers, DAP and complexes are manufactured at Haldia in West Bengal in eastern India; MOP is imported. Currently, TCL is a dominant player in the crop nutrition segment and its subsidiary Rallis India is a leader in the crop protection industry. Through Rallis, TCL is looking to enhance value creation as well as access to business synergies in the crop nutrition and protection sectors, and thus strengthen its presence in the entire agri-input space. The company also helps small farmers enhance farm yields by providing end-to-end solutions through a network of Tata Kisan Sansars (farmers centres) in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand. Tata Kisan Sansars are one-stop resource centres; they stock seeds, pesticides and fertilisers; lease out farm equipment and implements to farmers who cannot afford to buy expensive modern machinery; provide agronomy services like soil testing and mapping and fertiliser testing; arrange credit and crop insurance, and even provide buyback facilities.

New business Biofuels | TCL Innovation Centre | Centre for Agricultre and Techonology (CAT)

Tata Chemicals is leveraging its expertise in chemicals and agri-businesses to develop strengths in new sustainable technologies in the nanotechnology and biotechnology space. The company is actively working to build a significant presence in the biofuels sector. Its Innovation Centre is working on technologies that can mitigate climate change through green chemistry and product offerings that will make a difference. Biofuels In 2007, Tata Chemicals decided to enter the biofuels business in India. A 30KL per day bioethanol facility, using sweet sorghum as feedstock, has been set up at Nanded, Maharashtra. Arrangements have been made with farmers in districts in and around Nanded, for growing sweet sorghum. The plant has proved the technical viability of bioethanol production based on sweet sorghum. The company has also undertaken field research on Jatropha, a non-edible tree crop for biodiesel production. Tata Chemicals has set up a research farm in Aurangabad and has started varietal trials for developing a package of practice. The company has also set up multi location trials for Jatropha in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. TCL Innovation Centre Tata Chemicals Innovation Centre was set up with the objective of developing world-class R&D facility working on more than 20 projects in the areas of nanotechnology and biotechnology. It has now moved from being TCL-centric to a having a much wider base of clients, from the Tata group as well as external companies. The team of scientists at the centre is working in the following areas: Advanced materials Specialty chemicals Green chemistry and catalysis , Alternate energy Nutraceuticals Centre for Agriculture and Techonology (CAT) The CAT has been set up in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh to provide advice to farmers on farming and crop nutrition practices and solutions. This centre is staffed with experienced scientists who are working in various areas of agritechnology. Specific projects have been undertaken on determining area and crop specific nutrition products and combinations, soil health tracking through indexing etc. The CAT is expected to provide TCL a competitive advantage in the future and will provide a very strong base for the growth of the company in its customised fertiliser business, specialty crop nutrients business and agribusiness

Competition with other competators:

Last Price

Market Cap.
(Rs. cr.)

Sales Turnover

Net Profit

Total Assets

Tata Chemicals

361.2

9,201.80 5,476.64

434.78

7,221.58

United Phos Pidilite Ind BOC India BASF

183.4 154.7 318.95 635.45

8,087.17 2,555.13 7,829.90 1,949.77 2,720.14 807.99 2,590.73 1,394.14

181.29 293.5 53.24 96.81

4,075.41 1,359.09 1,175.73 865.77

Guj Flourochem 214.65 Himadri Chem Gulf Oil Corp Solar Ind Guj Alkali 48.95 112.05 599.65 126.5

2,357.93 997.24 1,888.16 505.93 1,110.92 976.06 1,038.82 483.5 928.98 1,315.87

334.16 107.34 45.07 31.27 171.84

2,066.18 1,150.65 726.94 294.91 1,714.31

Balance Sheet comaprision to the competators balance sheet

------------------- in Rs. Cr. ------------------Tata Chemicals Mar '10 United Phos Mar '10 Pidilite Ind Mar '10 BOC India Dec '09 BASF Mar '10

Sources Of Funds Total Share Capital Equity Share Capital Share Application Money Preference Share Capital Reserves Revaluation Reserves Networth Secured Loans Unsecured Loans Total Debt Total Liabilities 243.32 243.32 0.00 0.00 4,031.75 0.00 4,275.07 249.24 2,697.27 2,946.51 7,221.58 Tata Chemicals Mar '10 Application Of Funds Gross Block Less: Accum. Depreciation 3,803.50 2,211.06 1,603.54 630.76 801.18 388.92 1,065.81 375.76 629.62 386.31 87.91 87.91 0.00 0.00 1,833.62 0.00 1,921.53 226.08 1,927.80 2,153.88 4,075.41 United Phos Mar '10 50.61 50.61 0.00 0.00 887.05 0.00 937.66 218.45 202.98 421.43 1,359.09 Pidilite Ind Mar '10 85.28 85.28 0.00 0.00 971.15 1.68 1,058.11 0.00 117.61 117.61 1,175.72 BOC India Dec '09 40.77 40.77 0.00 0.00 825.00 0.00 865.77 0.00 0.00 0.00 865.77 BASF Mar '10

Net Block Capital Work in Progress Investments Inventories Sundry Debtors Cash and Bank Balance Total Current Assets Loans and Advances Fixed Deposits Total CA, Loans & Advances Deffered Credit Current Liabilities Provisions Total CL & Provisions Net Current Assets Miscellaneous Expenses Total Assets Contingent Liabilities Book Value (Rs)

1,592.44 237.65 4,905.59 611.19 581.60 624.96 1,817.75 391.39 87.69 2,296.83 0.00 1,457.74 353.19 1,810.93 485.90 0.00 7,221.58 560.26 175.74

972.78 29.33 687.87 287.01 747.66 131.35 1,166.02 1,851.08 252.35 3,269.45 0.00 781.51 102.51 884.02 2,385.43 0.00 4,075.41 878.21 43.71

412.26 282.62 510.66 250.63 238.76 32.83 522.22 108.99 0.29 631.50 0.00 380.27 97.68 477.95 153.55 0.00 1,359.09 124.89 18.53

690.05 426.53 15.00 67.57 120.32 17.68 205.57 233.86 54.54 493.97 0.00 417.12 32.70 449.82 44.15 0.00 1,175.73 168.74 123.87

243.31 9.52 9.00 349.51 258.00 27.29 634.80 244.98 136.55 1,016.33 0.00 358.18 54.21 412.39 603.94 0.00 865.77 29.80 212.36

Tata and its competencies company and their strategies:Tata Chemicals started with competition. First there was global competition due to falling duties and, at times, even dumping. While Tata Chemicals is an efficient manufacturer of soda ash, it was not geared to withstand competition from the US industry, which harnesses natural soda ash from lakes full of it. Domestic competition too cropped up when its largest customer, Nirma, went ahead and set up its own half a million tonne soda ash plant last year. Tata Chemicals was a pioneer in vacuum evaporated pure salt, but tremendous pressure was brought on it through aggressive marketing by Hindustan Lever under the brand name: 'Annapurna'. Clearly, for HLL, salt was a cheap way to establish an all-embracing food brand, Annapurna. Consequently, there were huge dealer discounts. The delay in putting up a urea plant in Babrala too brought its own woes in terms of interest during construction. At the same time, the current fertiliser policy, based on plant by plant allocation of subsidies, gives no incentives to efficient producers while shielding inefficient ones. As a result of all these factors, profits have been highly volatile and slipped from Rs 288 crore in 1998-99 to Rs 117 crore in 1999-2000. Consequently, the stock too is trading around Rs 50 down from a high of Rs 200-plus a few years ago. Clearly, the main strength of Tata Chemicals is in manufacturing. Rallis, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. Its main strength lies in marketing and distribution. Interestingly, Rallis is one of the oldest companies still alive and kicking in India. A Greek entrepreneur, John Eustratio Ralli, founded Ralli Brothers in India in 1851, which was rechristened Rallis India in 1948. From a trading company Rallis transformed itself into an agrochemical company, spreading its activities from manufacturing and formulating to distribution and marketing, primarily under the leadership of Vijay Rai. However, it also diversified into pharma, trading in phosphatic fertilisers, seeds, etc and set up some subsidiaries, including one in Israel.

Rallis has pesticide manufacturing plants in several locations: Navi Mumbai, Akola (Maharashtra) Hyderabad, Ankleshwar (Gujarat) but its main strength is its sales force that has made Rallis a premier brand in all the important agrochemical markets. Rallis is also furiously focussing and has gotten rid of its engineering and pharma business. Arguably, Rallis' R&D centre in Bangalore is the best in the Indian agrochemical industry. It is the only toxicology lab in India of international standards. But Rallis has lost money in its subsidiaries and has a huge debt burden of Rs 500 crore. As a result, Rallis' record on the profitability front has been dismal. Even leading to a shocking Rs 25.6 crore loss last year. Even when the going was good Rallis was not a very profitable company. With a top line that has grown from Rs 1,171 crore in 1996-97 to Rs 1,446 crore in 2000-01, the profits were a meagre Rs 22.80 crore and Rs 45.42 crore respectively. Of course, a lot of top line contribution comes from trading, where the margins are low. As chairman Dr Freddie Mehta said in his address during the AGM on 10 September 2001: "The reported loss during 1999-2000 is RS 25.6 crore. It actually includes a loss of Rs 33.2 crore, which had to be absorbed in the clean-up operations, and Rs 19.3 crore non-operational income, mainly due to the sale of pharma brands and property in Chennai. The losses came from: a write off of Rs 12.96 crore due to earlier debits, Rs 6.66 crore from bulk drugs, sericulture and garment operations. Provisioning Rs 5 crore for more bad debts and Rs 8.5 crore loss in the JV in Israel." Though Rallis expanded rapidly under the leadership of Vijay Rai, the recent dismal performance saw some heads roll. The result: exit Rai in not too savoury circumstances, enter young Rajeev Dubey from Tata Metaliks in September 2000. The scene at Tata Chemicals too was no different. The poor performance of Tata Chemicals also brought in management changes, leading to the rather dramatic exit of Manu Seth in August 2000 and the entry of Prasad Menon, a veteran of the fertiliser industry. Gopalakrishnan, who is vice-chairman of Tata Chemicals and is also on the board of Rallis, was pressed into service at Bombay House to set the house right. Gopalakrishnan immediately saw the synergy in the two companies and, together with Menon and Dubey, started a restructuring operation in earnest. Brainstorming about Tata's strategy in chemicals led to clear goals: the aspiration to become the lowest-cost bulk industrial chemicals and to take a major initiative in rural India with a bouquet of products and services to farmers distributing nutrients, fertilisers, pesticides and agronomical advisory services. The outcome of this brainstorming and close coordination between Rallis and Tata Chemicals has also led to speculation in the media about a merger of the two. Gopalakrishnan, however, pooh poohs it. The trio is now totally focussed on turning around the two companies and recharging them to unassailable levels in customer focus and manufacturing excellence. Gopalakrishnan is so confident about the results of the process underway that he says: "Excellence achieved in Tata Steel is a result of things set in motion several years ago. I am confident that what is happening in the chemical companies of Tata Group Rallis and Tata Chemicals will lead to similar results in about three years." Skeptics might consider it an overoptimistic statement, considering the dismal performance of the two companies. Business India spent several weeks visiting both Tata Chemicals and Rallis plants in Babrala, Mithapur, Hyderabad, and the famous pesticide market Pattanam Bazaar, in Guntur (Andhra Pradesh), which is reputed to be the largest in Asia, transacting over Rs 250 crore of business in a small street less than a kilometre in length. We also visited the Rallis R&D centre in Bangalore and spoke to farmers in the Pesticide Efficacy Advisory Centre (PEACE) in Andhra Pradesh and in Tata Kisan Kendras in the villages of Uttar Pradesh. The conclusion was clear: adversity seems to have come as an opportunity to these companies. Rapidly they are being transformed into powerhouses that can lead a major Tata initiative into agro business.

Of course, the exercise started with lopping off some old businesses and assets. For example, Rallis has merged some of its subsidiaries like Ralchem into itself while selling off the pharma business to the Shreya group for Rs 18.14 crore. It has also exited from the dyes and sericulture businesses. Gopalakrishnan also discovered a large piece of valuable real estate in Andheri (Mumbai), which was not being used for anything other than entertaining top management cadres. It has been sold for a sizable sum of Rs 133 crore to Tata Sons. At that spot Tata Sons plan to build a world-class campus for the software geeks of Tata Consultancy Services, thereby also exiting from several pieces of real estate in the more expensive Nariman Point. Using group synergies, the expertise in instrumentation at Tata Honeywell and in IT-enabled manufacturing in TCS, the two companies have been pressed into manufacturing Tata Chemicals. Old dogs and new tricks In the second phase of proactive steps, the first major initiative has come in HR. On the one hand, the Mithapur plant had excess manpower, which has been pruned through a generous employee separation scheme. While this was expected, what came as a pleasant surprise to insiders was the hefty hike that employees got in both Tata Chemicals and Rallis. "We were working hard even earlier, but there were rumours of the Tatas withdrawing from Rallis. But this hike came as a great morale booster, which showed that the leadership clearly believes that despite current problems the company has a great future," says KT Vijaykumar, regional sales manager of Rallis in Vijaywada. It had a similar effect in Tata Chemicals as well. According to Anil Vaidya, COO, at Mithapur works, the most interesting HR fall-out has come from an industrial accident. The fire in the power plant in Mithapur earlier this year destroyed the plant and set back production in soda ash, salt and cement plants, but it also brought in great teamwork. The power plant was rebuilt and brought on line in record time and plant engineers like IL Momin and AG Vaidya take great pride in the same. The momentum generated in this disaster management and rebuilding has greatly helped in pushing forward 'Action 500', a campaign to reduce the cost of production of soda ash by Rs 500 per tonne by December 2001. Vaidya already claims to have achieved it and is preparing to launch the next one to reduce the cost by Rs 1,500/tonne. Gopalakrishnan and Menon, however, are cautious on this front and say "let the auditors substantiate the claim and then we will announce it". A healthy dose of realism no doubt. But the goal is very clear: Tata Chemicals should become profitable even in a zero-duty regime despite competition from natural soda ash producers. On the fertiliser front too, Tata Chemicals is working hard to gain higher efficiencies. The fact that there is price control and a consequent cost-plus regime, or that Tata Chemicals is already one of the most energy efficient plants has not deterred them. However, the most interesting change that is coming over Tata Chemicals is on the marketing front. "Strictly speaking, we did not have a marketing group five years ago, when I joined after a long stint in Rallis," says Kapil Mehan, VP, sales and marketing. Tata Chemicals had preeminent market share in soda ash, close to 60 per cent and customers used to get their quota. With imports and new capacity added by Nirma, there came a rude shock. Since then its market share has fallen to about 40 per cent in soda ash and margins have eroded too. "Now we have a team of 30 people in marketing and there are client service officers for top-10 customers as in an ad agency," adds Mehan. Tata Salt, which had a preeminent position in the table salt segment, has also been facing competition from HLL's Annapurna and smaller manufacturers. Mehan and his team are working on a massive ad campaign to capitalise on the fact that Tata Salt is the only vacuum evaporated pure salt in India. However, to cover the flanks they are also test marketing a cheaper crushed salt under the brand name Samudra. However, it is on the fertiliser front that Tata Chemicals has taken a major strategic initiative. Under Darbari Seth's leadership, it set up a few modern centres, called Tata Kisan Kendras, in some parts of India, starting with Ujjhani near Babrala (UP). Today they have blossomed into the front end of Tatas' ambitious and farreaching foray into agro business. Every Tata Kisan Kendra (TKK) has an agronomist who can advise farmers on what cropping pattern to use or diagnose a particular pest attack in their crop and recommend the

appropriate agro chemical to be used. These centres also have a godown for fertilisers and a store that sells anything from Tata Salt to pesticides. Several training sessions are held here for the surrounding farmers, who enroll themselves in the TKK club. There is a waiting list to become a TKK member and a handful of people are chosen from each village. The centres have all modern amenities, including conference rooms and cafeterias and look futuristic in the impoverished UP milieu. For the sake of completeness, another service that is being offered is modern farm machinery on hire at affordable rates. When Business India visited the TKK in Ujjhani there was a day-long training session going on, covering veterinary science to cropping patterns and agronomical information on new seeds and agrochemicals, in which 100 farmers were participating. The participants had come on their own expense and consisted of farmers between 20 and 60 years of age. The community development team at Tata Chemicals, consisting of architect couple Vivek and Alka Talwar, has plans to propel these villagers into the 21st century. They are working on a major Geographic Information System project that will contain the most detailed rural database ever collected. You just point and click on any piece of land in any surrounding village in the computer kiosk at a TKK and you can get details of cropping pattern, satellite-based information regarding soil fertility contours, crop yield estimation and even pest attacks. A farmer can just drop in at a TKK and get all the information he needs including the much-coveted land records. Doesn't all this sound like expensive social work when the company is not doing too well? "Not at all. In fact, the godown within a TKK sells about 3,000 tonnes of fertilisers and makes the whole centre self-supporting," says BB Singh, who looks after fertiliser marketing. It is this front end with farmers that Rallis excels in. "The Tata brand equity in rural India is a revelation," says Rajeev Dubey, but he is understating Rallis' own network in bringing this about. But since there are so many pesticide companies and any new product gets copied very fast, how do you maintain growth? There are two ways of doing it. One is to constantly pump your R&D to come with better molecules and formulations. Dr MS Mithyantha and his team at Rallis R&D centre at Bangalore are lining up such a pipeline. A factor which reduces the time from lab to market for such products is this lab itself. It being arguably the best toxicology lab in India, they can study the effect of any pesticide molecule on birds, bees, animals and so on, and file the required data for regulatory approval. Even though this procedure is not as elaborate as that for new drugs, it is still quite expensive and time consuming. Even MNCs who have discovered the molecules and are using them elsewhere have to again file this data in India before introducing these molecules. Since they have a rather elaborate set up, Rallis is offering this service to other companies and making money on technical services. Quietly, Mithyantha's chemists and entomologists have also come up with novel molecules which they are in the process of patenting. If one of these turn out to be an effective pesticide molecule, then that will be the first agrochemical to be discovered in India. There is a sea change on the marketing front in Rallis as well. "We have gotten rid of high-volume, low-margin pesticides but the primary change that has come about in the last year is that the top management is on top of the market situation and there is no dumping of inventory on us. Today we produce what we need and thus we are able to get rid of the discount wars and realise better prices and also lower inventory in our distribution network," says B Raj Kumar, regional sales manager of Hyderabad. The other way to maintain farmers' mindshare is to have an extensive network of agronomists who act like crop doctors. There is one major difference between pharma marketing and agrochemical marketing. Pharma companies need only to educate the doctors about new drugs and make sure that the pharmacies carry them. After all, the consumers patients have intrinsic belief in what the good doctor prescribes. In the case of agrochemicals, there is no such structure. As a result, farmers depend on word of mouth and half-baked information and tend to overuse pesticides, or the wrong ones and at the wrong time. They need farm doctors who can test soil chemistry and advise on what fertiliser to use when and in what quantity. And when there is a

pest attack it should be diagnosed correctly and correct advice should be given on what agrochemical to use. "Incorrect practices not only lead to extra chemical load on the crops and hence on the consumers, but also at times serious resistance developing in the pests. Rallis is doing it with an army of paraagronomists. For example, in Vijaywada alone we had deployed over 1,000 youth, armed with in-house training and a moped, to stay with farmers during the busy season and deliver service," says KT Vijay Kumar. The result of this kind of interface is an amazing amount of bonding. Business India was witness to an impromptu farmers' meeting in a village near Aligarh (UP), where Dubey was questioned by about 30 farmers on supplies of particular fertilisers and agrochemicals. The sense of bonding was so strong that these farmers were least intimidated by the presence of the managing director of the company himself. Moreover, they seemed to be surprisingly well-versed in phytochemistry. Obviously, a quiet revolution is waiting to happen in the countryside and companies like Rallis and Tata Chemicals are playing their part in hastening it. There is immense hunger among the farmers for agronomical services, along with proper products. Rallis is also exploring seriously the seed market and Dr. A K Deshmukh and his team at Pattancheru, near Hyderabad, are busy developing new hybrids and high-yielding varieties. Rallis is also cautiously venturing into corporate agriculture by trying to reduce the role of intermediaries. "It is clear that there is a multi-billion dollar opportunity in food processing and agro business, but the experience of the corporate sector in this field is very mixed. There is Pepsi's experience in Punjab, there is Hindustan Levers' experience with wheat growers and atta. There is also an unrelated but relevant experience of a lot of business houses with aqua culture. That is why on a small scale we are doing some things in Chitradurga in Karnataka and a different experiment in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana," says Dubey. Tatas, ICICI and HLL have launched a 'Partnership Project' for contract farming in wheat and basmati rice in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh to provide a profitable model for agriculture. Rallis and ICICI have also tied up with big retail chains like Food World and Nilgiris and juice maker Sunsip for contract farming of fruits and vegetables in Karnataka. Thus two of the oldest companies in the Tata stable have weathered a financial crisis and the mixed legacy of earlier management and are restructuring themselves. There are turnaround strategies ad nauseum in corporate India, but what distinguishes the current change underway in Tata Chemicals and Rallis is the aggressive vision of the group to position itself firmly in the hinterland of industrial India. In the process they are acting as agents of social change even in the most backward villages, where the state has withered away.

Marketing strategy:-

The chemistry is clearly changing at Tata Chemicals. For starters, the exit of Mr Manu Seth from the Tata Chemicals board in August 2000 gave way to chemical industry veteran Mr Prasad Menon coming in as managing director, and Mr R Gopalakrishnan from the Tata Sons board as executive director. This comes at a time when the company is also attempting to transform itself from a mere manufacturing company to a service-oriented, competent player in the marketplace. Like most of its peers in the Tata Group, Tata Chemicals too was labouring under the burden of the past. The company is the largest producer of synthetic soda ash with its completely integrated plant at Mithapur, which also produces nearly 300,000 tonnes of vacuum evaporated sodium chloride (common salt) as a byproduct. Also gypsum (another byproduct) is used to make half a million tonnes of cement. What the company, however, lacked was marketing skills to support its manufacturing strengths. With a soda ash capacity of 8 lakh tonnes per annum and a nearly 60 per cent market share, there was a sense of complacency. With falling import duties, Tata Chemicals was not armoured to withstand imports from the US, and what perhaps acted as a catalyst is its largest consumer Nirma, setting up its own 42,000-tonne soda ash capacity. As a result, the market share dropped to 42 per cent. In the branded salt business, too, Tata Chemicals faced stiff competition from Hindustan Lever, who used their distribution network to launch the Annapurna brand across India. Tata Salt, despite being the first player in the branded salt market, lost a sizeable share to the Annapurna and the Captain Cook brands, largely due to its inexperience as an FMCG player. In fertilisers also, despite suffering many initial glitches, its urea plant of 7.5 lakh tonne capacity at Babrala, Uttar Pradesh, is one of the most technologically advanced, cost efficient manufacturing facilities in the country. However,

price controls and a cost-plus regime does not help much. The fertiliser policy that shields inefficient players by allocating subsidies based on plants, has not helped either. Result: Profits had dwindled from Rs 288.63crore in 1998-99 to Rs164.95crore in 2000-01 and return on capital employed had slipped from 17.41 to 11.26 during the same period. Clearly, a constructive effort was the call of the day. "We realised that we had inherent manufacturing strengths, but we had to enhance our operational efficiencies to become a formidable player and we have made significant progress in that direction," says Mr Menon. Operational revamp To enhance its operations, the company, with the help of McKinsey, has chalked a four-pronged strategy: restructure the marketing team, focus on the customer, streamline supply chain management and cut costs to improve margins, and look out for alliances and partnerships to grow in new markets. "We want to become the lowest cost producer of synthetic soda ash," says Mr Mukundan, vice-president (strategy and business development). As the first step towards achieving that goal, the company had launched a programme called Action 500, which was essentially to bring the variable cost of production down by Rs 500 per tonne. Currently, the cost of production is around Rs 3,800 to Rs 4,000 per tonne. Having achieved that, the next step is a project called Manthan, designed by McKinsey, which will be a continuous effort to improve working capital and inventory management and rationalise costs. "With Manthan we have set no targets, the idea is not to (merely) accept what is existing but continuously strive to achieve higher cost reductions across all functions," says Mr Mukundan. "What will perhaps stand the company in good stead in the long run is its recent focus on marketing," says an industry expert. Mr Kapil Mehan, vice-president (sales and marketing) who joined the company five years ago, had to virtually set up a marketing team, currently at 30. That, in a way, provided the much needed fillip to a non-existing function at Tata Chemicals. To market soda ash, the company has not only widened its distribution network but has also set up dedicated client servicing teams for its top few customers. More market-friendly The company has also set up a separate marketing team to handle the table salt business. "Marketing salt is a totally different ball game and needs the strengths of an FMCG company," says Mr Mehan. Earlier, the company had sold off its detergent brand Tata Shudh to Jyoti Laboratories, because it did not have the relevant expertise to market an FMCG product like detergent. Also, with Tata Shudh, Tata Chemicals was competing with its own customers, since the largest consumers of soda ash are detergent companies. "It was difficult to get into that cutthroat competition with our own customers; philosophically that business did not suit us," says Mr Mehan. Today, the company is also toying with the idea of launching a cheaper crushed salt under the brand Samundar. The test marketing is underway and this is likely to boost its salt business further. Already with an estimated 37 per cent market share, it is ahead of HLLs Annapurna which has 35 per cent. On the fertiliser front, the Tata Kisan Kendras (TKKs) have provided the plank to reach out to customers. "We have realised that to increase our urea sales we have to reach out to the farmers directly," says Mr Menon. The TKKs are set up in areas where the company has a dominant presence, and farmers are advised on cropping patterns and the use of pesticides and seeds. These centres also sell everything from fertilisers to Tata Salt, and modern farm machinery is offered on hire. "These are meant to provide complete farm solutions to the farmers," says Mr Menon.

"These initiatives are in line with a long-term strategy of brand-building," says an analyst. The company will benefit from eventual price decontrol due to superior margins and a firm relationship with its customers. Even in its cement business, the company has revamped its marketing strategy. While it was marketed by ACC, the company now markets its own produce. Tata Chemicals was scouting for a buyer for its cement unit, but due to its size it has been unable to do so. "We have an open mind as far as cement is concerned. We will either sell it or rope in a partner to take the capacity up to one million tonnes," says Mr Menon. Meanwhile, the company is marketing its cement business under the purity plank and trying to get it back in the black. What is perhaps encouraging is that in the third quarter of this fiscal, despite taking a Rs 20 crore cut in its top line on account of the energy norms, the company has posted a 26 per cent increase in bottom line ."We are confident of a stable future because of the measures we have initiated within the organisation," says Mr Menon. The company has also revamped its human resource policies, by implementing an emolument scheme, based on performance. The company has also reduced the number of layers within each department to avoid procedural delays in any function. To reward its shareholders, Tata Chemicals has launched a buyback option, for which the total outgo is expected to be around Rs 125crore. Tata Chemicals has also realised that while it is important to get the basics right, so is looking for greener pastures. In its second phase of engagement, McKinsey has been given the mandate to chalk out areas of growth for the company. The company is also in talks with the government to pick up a stake in National Fertilizers Limited (NFL) and Paradip Phosphates Limited (PPL). "We have completed the due diligence and are waiting for the governments decision," says MrMenon. The decision on PPL is likely to precede that of NFL. The Tatas as well as the companys investors are hoping that Mr Menon and his team will act as the right catalyst to bring about these changes at Tata Chemicals. Taking an example of TATA salt:Tata Salt's new communication strategy attempts to elevate the brand to the status of a national icon desh ka namak (the country's salt). With this positioning, Tata Chemicals, the manufacturers of Tata Salt, hopes to break the brand clutter caused by recent entrants in the salt market. The pioneer in India's branded-salt industry, Tata Salt has held the No.1 position in the country since its launch in 1983. It has a 37 per cent share of the branded-salt market and an 18 per cent share of the total salt market. Tata Chemicals' salt story began in 1983, when it needed fresh water for the boilers that produced soda ash at its Mithapur plant. Fresh water was scarce, so the company set up a process to generate it by using seawater, a freely available resource. Salt, of high quality and purity, was a by-product. Says Kapil Mehan, vice president (sales and marketing), Tata Chemicals: "At that time both Unicef and the Indian government were promoting the intake of iodine for health reasons. Salt is the most economical and convenient dietary vehicle for iodine consumption." The Tata brand advantage These factors led to Tata Chemicals taking up salt production. "We marketed the product by prefixing the Tata name to it," says Mr Mehan. "Our positioning statement emerged: Namak ho Tata ka, Tata namak." The line remains an audio mnemonic for the brand. The communication was built around the fact that Tata Salt, India's first iodised salt, was manufactured by a Tata company.

The first competitive challenge came in the early 1990s with the launch of Captain Cook. Positioned as a freeflowing salt, it helped create awareness about brands in the salt segment. Tata Chemicals responded by releasing ads to counter Captain Cook's claims. As more consumers moved from non-branded or local products to the national brands, Tata Salt's inherent superiority and strong distribution network ensured its continuing growth in terms of market share and category expansion. In 1996, Annapurna, another national salt brand, was launched. It was positioned on the health benefits of iodine. According to Mr Mehan, by that time iodisation had become almost a hygiene factor and consumers did not perceive it as a differentiator. The rising number of players in the branded-salt segment got Tata Chemicals to think of strategies to combat the possibility of its market share being eroded. In 1998, the company conducted a comprehensive market research study to understand the consumer psyche. The results ranked Tata Salt high on attributes such as iodisation, free flow, purity and whiteness (consumers thought of Tata Salt as a saltier salt). The next commercial showed Sanjeev Kapoor, the famous chef, endorsing the product for these attributes. Pressing the purity button By late 2001 several brands had entered the market. In September, 2001, Tata Salt was relaunched with a new advertisement that talked about its purity, a core property of the brand. The packaging was also changed to a more premium-looking pack, a response to consumer feedback. Tata Chemicals brought in consultants to track the brand and review its marketing strategy. The results showed that Tata Salt's brand equity index was 7, which was ahead of the competition. But a study by Quadra Consultancy on the marketing strategy revealed that, though the brand awareness was still strong, the differences between the players was getting cloudy. "In order to sustain a competitive advantage over a long period of time, what is needed is for the consumer to perceive you to be different from others," adds Mr Mehan. "The best way to differentiate is to connect with the consumer at an emotional level." The challenge, according to Mr Mehan, was to take purity, a rational product benefit, and create an emotional link with the consumers. A new agency, Bates India, was chosen to work on the communication. Says JS Mani, vice president and general manager, Bates India: "A strong fact that emerged from our research was that consumers were troubled about the gradual erosion of our value system. Another factor was that salt is deeply rooted in grassroots values. Putting them together, we linked the product (salt) with integrity of character." The advertisements, released in August 2002, show ordinary people doing their duties with integrity and commitment. "Integrity should not be seen only in the context of a uniform, or as integral to the occupation," says Mr Mani. Apart from a policeman and an army officer, there is a railway linesman checking the fishplates in spite of heavy rains, and a taxi driver returning a cell phone but refusing the reward. The emotional link "Our campaign is a reassurance for Tata Salt users," says Mr Mehan. "By using Tata Salt, a pure salt, he is a pure human being. That's the emotional link."

The communication route is interesting because Tata Salt's leadership position is implied, not stated. The commercials end with the consumer stating: "Maine desh ka namak khaya hai." "If everyone is eating the salt, then it suggests that Tata Salt is the leading salt in the market," says Mr Mani. Additionally, the company decided to contribute 10 paise on every packet of Tata Salt sold between August 15 and September 15, 2002, towards the education of deprived girl children. The Desh Ko Arpan programme encouraged ordinary individuals to make a difference. Over Rs35 lakh was collected and given to Child Relief and You through this initiative. The new campaign got an enthusiastic response from all Tata Chemicals employees, who signed a specially designed poster reiterating their commitment to the product. "It was a very emotional event, " says Mr Mehan. "They felt very proud to be part of a successful company with a No.1 brand." Tata Chemicals had taken over the distribution of Tata Salt in December 2001 to make it more efficient. "The selling and logistics functions are now separate entities," says Mr Mehan. "Sales and distribution teams concentrate on developing markets and improving the penetration level of Tata Salt. The team is structured and focused like an FMCG company." In order to strengthen relations with its channel partners, the company organised a workshop to help them manage business through insights into marketing and strategy skills. The workshop was greatly appreciated by the partners. Potential to grow Mr Mehan feels that the brand has tremendous potential to grow, since 70 per cent of the market consists of nonbranded salt. "Our focus is on two levels: to retain our core users and bring in new users." The efforts have been successful. Tata Salt was voted the fourth most trusted brand in a survey conducted recently by The Economic Times. "We were pleasantly surprised by the result, since salt was thus far not considered a product exciting enough to feature in the survey," says Mr Mehan. "We knew that our brand was the best. This is due to a combination of personal experience, the Tata name and product quality, which people have experienced for so many years." Tata Salt has a strong presence in the northern, western and eastern regions of India. The south is a weak area, but the company is currently evaluating options to tackle this weakness. There are also plans to go global, and discussions for Bangladesh and the Middle East are on the anvil. "With the current level of activities in the market, we are looking at enhancing Tata Salts market share to 38-40 per cent," says Mr Mehan. "But, more than that, we are looking at expanding the base of the category so as to bring in new users." Manufacturing:It is the most common thing on every dining table and yet it is the most important. To the richest and the poorest, salt provides saltiness and basic taste to food; and if it is Tata Salt it also provides the requisite daily dose of iodine. Launched in 1983, Tata Salt pioneered packaged iodised salt in India. It offered millions of housewives an opportunity to move away from the loose, unbranded salt of suspect quality to the reassurance of clean, pure salt, guaranteed by Indias most trusted business house. Today, Tata Salt touches the lives of 40 million

households in India and is one of the two Tata brands (the other is Tata Indicom) which directly impact a large part of the Indian population. Tata Salt enjoys market leadership in the branded salt category with a 44-per cent market share. As a brand, it is extremely popular, enjoying 100-per cent awareness among customers, the highest for any food brand tracked in various studies. The trust that consumers have in the brand is reflected by the fact that since 2003, it has been consistently ranked the number one food brand (except in 2007 when it was at number 2) by The Economic Times Brand Equity most trusted brands survey. Quite an impressive achievement, especially when one considers that Tata Chemicals the company which manufactures Tata Salt had no experience in marketing consumer products. It was essentially a company producing soda ash. And salt was merely a by-product of using steam to make soda ash, at the companys Mithapur plant in Gujarat, India. The decision to brand and sell this by-product as iodised table salt was adventitious. It so happened that in early 1980s the Indian government identified iodised salt as the most effective vehicle to deal with iodine deficiency diseases rampant among the masses. Concerned with the widespread health problem, then industry minister ND Tiwari approached Darbari Seth, the then managing director of Tata Chemicals, to find a solution. It was a worthwhile cause and Mr Seth decided to support the governments health campaign to eradicate iodine deficiency disorders through iodised salt. So, desh ka namak (salt of the nation) is not just a marketing slogan; Tata Salt actually came into existence to serve a national need. However, for a company focused on bulk manufacturing, the move to consumer products was not easy. Tata Chemicals had to learn lessons in packaging, distribution, branding and marketing. It also had to face the challenge posed by loose, unbranded salt, which dominated the market then. Added to this was the reluctance of consumers to pay more for a commodity as common as salt. With no knowledge of how the market would work or respond but with the intention of helping the Indian government in its cause, Tata Chemicals went ahead with the launch of Tata Salt in 1983, pioneering the cause of iodisation in India.

I-Shakti

The product was revolutionary by all standards. It was branded. It was iodised. And it was vacuum evaporated a technology never used before for making salt in India. Plus, because of the technology used, it was white, pure and consistent, and free from any extraneous matter unlike the solar salts in general use then. As awareness of health issues has grown and consumers have become more discerning, the Tata Salt brand has also grown from strength to strength. In the food business, where companies spend a fortune on brand building, this is no mean feat. So whats the secret? Ashvini Hiran, head, consumer products business, explains: The word Tata lends the value of trust and quality to Tata Salt. The functional benefits and unmatched quality, coupled with the emotional connect the brand has with the people of India, has positioned it as the most trusted food brand of India.

I-Shakti, the solar refined salt brand of Tata Chemicals (TCL), brings the goodness of iodine to the masses at an affordable price. For the extremely budget-conscious housewives in rural and semi-urban areas, it provided an opportunity to upgrade from loose, coarse, unbranded salt to the benefits of good quality, free-flowing iodised salt. Launched in October 2006, IShakti reaches 20 million households, has an annual consumption of 150,000 metric tonnes and is the second biggest salt brand in the country, after Tata Salt, with a market share of 14 per cent in the branded salt category according to the Nielsen Retail Audit, August 2009.

TCL has laid down stringent quality specifications for I-Shakti. This has resulted in good manufacturing practices at facilities and improvement in solar salt quality. Each packet of I-Shakti is endorsed by the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders for containing an adequate quantity of iodine.

Tata Salt clicked with the consumers from the I-Shakti conducts several consumer activation programmes beginning. The purity positioning, supported by around the Iodine sahi to dimag tez (roughly translated it the government campaign to promote iodised means adequate quantity of iodine results in an intelligent salt, established it as a favourite with housewives mind) campaign to spread awareness about the goodness of in no time. It was only in 1990 that other players iodine and its health benefits. I-Shakti has helped in spreading joined the fray and Tata Salt had competition. iodisation from 50 per cent of the population to 65 per cent. Captain Cook, with its promise of a free flowing salt that doesnt become soggy, swamped the market. In 1996, Hindustan Unilever (then Hindustan Lever) launched Annapurna salt, positioning it on the health and iodine platform. Other brands such as Nirma and Dandi followed. This competition was something new for Tata Salt, so used to being the sole brand in the market. To combat this sudden onslaught on its supremacy in the market, a revolutionary new strategy was needed. So, in 2001, moving beyond the health and purity platform, Tata Salt launched the highly emotional Desh ka namak campaign, which reinforced its leadership position in the marketplace and the consumers mind and elevated the brand forever from the mundane to the sublime. This strong connect with the national good remains, to date, the key differentiator between Tata Salt and other brands. The latest ad campaign Ghul mil ke, carries the salt of the nation positioning forward by establishing a connect between salt and the way Indians celebrate festivals, putting aside religious and cultural differences. Quality matters Desh ka namak was a masterstroke. But this campaign could not have worked and that too in such a sustained manner, if the quality of the product had not been so unimpeachable. At Tata Salts Mithapur plant, the stringent

quality checks at every stage of the production process ensure that Tata Salt keeps to its promise of purity, whiteness, consistency, adequate iodisation and consistent saltiness. The 27 centres spread all over India that package the salt for distribution maintain the strictest hygiene, even though they are not owned by Tata Chemicals. Ensuring quality right through the supply chain is extremely important for us, explains Mr Hiran, that is why we have deputed senior managers to supervise the process. Each pack of Tata Salt is Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certified, which is the most respected food grade certification globally. To consumers it means that they get safe, pure and hygienic salt in every pack of Tata Salt. Interestingly, the HACCP certification for food safety is not a requirement for salt, and probably nowhere in the world do companies HACCP-certify their salt. Then why does Tata Chemicals do it? Because, says Mr Hiran, we go the extra mile to ensure quality. And because we want to be future ready. On the liteer side That the company is forward looking, modern and innovative is evident in other areas too. It conducts regular research to identify new segments, new products and new markets. Take for instance, Tata Salt Lite, launched in October 2007. Lite was the result of research studies which indicated that 40 per cent of the urban adult population suffers from hypertension and that salt could play an important role in its management. After extensive research, Tata Salt Lite was launched as a healthier option for consumers wanting to manage their weight and blood pressure. Lite aims at wellness and is packed with the triple goodness of 15 per cent less sodium (good for management of hypertension and heart-related diseases), potassium enrichment (good for maintaining the potassium-sodium balance in the body) and iodisation (to counter iodine deficiency and related problems). Since its launch, Lite has grown to four times that of its nearest competitor. The challenge for the marketing team now, according to Mr Hiran, is to make Tata Salt Lite as big as Tata Salt. Wellness is the new focus for Tata Chemicals and its research efforts are directed towards developing products that have far-reaching health benefits for the masses. Salt of the earth In keeping with the Tata tradition of giving back to society and in recognition of consumers loyalty towards the brand, Tata Salt introduced the Desh ko arpan (dedicated to the nation) programme in 2002. Every January (to coincide with Indias Republic Day) and August (to coincide with Indias Independence Day), Tata Chemicals contributes a part of its sales revenues to the nation through organisations involved in working to improve the lives of underprivileged children, thereby providing millions of Tata Salt users an opportunity to participate in a worthy cause. For the last two years the programme has extended educational support to 1,500 underprivileged girl children through the Nanhi Kali project. The 2009-10 programme funds and supports four hostels run by the Cohesion Foundation Trust for the children of salt pan workers in Gandhidham, a major salt hub in Gujarat. The seasonal hostels ensure the kids stay back and continue with their education, even when their parents migrate in search of a livelihood. Looking ahead, Mr Hiran is confident that Tata Salt will continue to innovate and to contribute to the public health of India. In a market flooded with branded salt, innovation does seem to be the best bet to keep ahead. However, the need to innovate for Tata Salt is not driven by competition. Mr Hiran explains: Most salt brands in

the market are solar salts and compete with I-Shakti (Tata Chemicals solar refined salt brand for the rural and semi-urban markets). Tata Salt is on a different platform. The competition or challenge, if any, is to keep the brand modern with new, healthy offerings for the nation. He adds: Tata Salt will remain the umbrella brand and in the coming years we hope to bring more variants, each with a story of its own. How Tata Salt is made Turning the waters of the Arabian Sea into Tata Salt using vacuum evaporation technology is a fascinating process. It all begins at Charkala Saltworks, some 45km away from the Tata Salt plant, where sea water is pumped into solar pans. The location is so environment friendly that scores of migratory birds from Europe and elsewhere fly in to nest. It is here that the sea water is concentrated by natural evaporation. This concentrated sea brine is brought to the Mithapur plant by two pipelines where the sand and foreign particles are first removed and then fed into steam-heated vacuum evaporators. The heating process creates a solid-liquid mix which is pumped into decanters for the first level of separation. In the second stage, the settled solids are pumped into a centrifuge to separate the moist salt. Once separated, it is dried and iodised, making it ready for use. Salt is then packed in 50-kg bags and despatched via rail and road to 27 HACCP-certified salt-packing centres across India, where it is packed into 1kg retail packs.

Financial Analysis:-

Balance Sheet of Tata Chemicals

Mar '06 Mar '07 12 mths 12 mths

------------------- in Rs. Cr. ------------------Mar '08 Mar '09 Mar '10

12 mths

12 mths

12 mths

Sources Of Funds Total Share Capital Equity Share Capital Share Application Money Preference Share Capital Reserves Revaluation Reserves Networth Secured Loans Unsecured Loans 215.16 215.16 0.00 0.00 1,952.54 0.00 2,167.70 160.43 1,294.06 215.16 215.16 0.00 0.00 2,177.68 0.00 2,392.84 60.63 981.14 234.00 234.00 0.06 0.00 3,337.62 0.00 3,571.68 47.97 2,297.31 235.23 235.23 0.00 0.00 3,386.68 0.00 3,621.91 249.48 3,426.62 243.32 243.32 0.00 0.00 4,031.75 0.00 4,275.07 249.24 2,697.27

Total Debt Total Liabilities

1,454.49 3,622.19 Mar '06

1,041.77 3,434.61 Mar '07

2,345.28 5,916.96 Mar '08

3,676.10 7,298.01 Mar '09

2,946.51 7,221.58 Mar '10

12 mths

12 mths

12 mths

12 mths

12 mths

Application Of Funds Gross Block Less: Accum. Depreciation Net Block Capital Work in Progress Investments Inventories Sundry Debtors Cash and Bank Balance Total Current Assets Loans and Advances Fixed Deposits Total CA, Loans & Advances Deffered Credit Current Liabilities Provisions Total CL & Provisions Net Current Assets Miscellaneous Expenses Total Assets 3,142.22 1,678.02 1,464.20 86.77 713.74 560.82 601.35 46.06 1,208.23 1,276.08 0.00 2,484.31 0.00 806.49 327.36 1,133.85 1,350.46 7.02 3,622.19 3,219.35 1,811.83 1,407.52 107.22 1,350.28 506.48 668.55 72.48 1,247.51 647.08 22.00 1,916.59 0.00 970.89 379.81 1,350.70 565.89 3.70 3,434.61 3,291.44 1,948.24 1,343.20 169.38 3,741.40 657.64 639.50 175.90 1,473.04 713.45 101.73 2,288.22 0.00 1,273.98 351.79 1,625.77 662.45 0.53 5,916.96 3,602.99 2,058.01 1,544.98 298.77 4,473.73 969.80 1,001.73 510.52 2,482.05 863.35 128.23 3,473.63 0.00 2,120.39 372.71 2,493.10 980.53 0.00 7,298.01 3,803.50 2,211.06 1,592.44 237.65 4,905.59 611.19 581.60 624.96 1,817.75 391.39 87.69 2,296.83 0.00 1,457.74 353.19 1,810.93 485.90 0.00 7,221.58

Contingent Liabilities Book Value (Rs)

965.34 100.78

287.64 111.24

530.80 152.64

394.96 154.01

560.26 175.74

Source : Religare Technova Explore Tata Chemicals connections

Tata Chemicals announces Q4 FY09 results

Mumbai, May 28, 2009

Business Highlights Soda ash business environment worldwide continues to be fluid; domestic demand stable on back of growing detergents and chemicals market Debottlenecked capacity at Babrala clocks highest ever urea sales Consumer products business continues to grow. I-Shakti sales almost double YOY Focused efficiency ADAPT programme delivering results The Board of Directors recommended a final dividend of 90% translating in a total outflow of Rs247.62 crore including dividend distribution tax. FY09 Financial Highlights Revenues at Rs12,258 crore up 103 per cent YOY Profit from operations increases 80 per cent to Rs1,436 crore PAT at Rs648 crore Q2FY09 Financial Highlights Revenues at Rs4,661 crore up 169 per cent YOY Profit from operations increases 169 per cent to Rs670 crore Profit before exceptional items and tax at Rs587 crore, up 120 per cent Tata Chemicals Limited, a leading manufacturer of chemicals, fertilisers and food additives today announced its consolidated & standalone financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2009. The Company is the second largest manufacturer of soda ash and the third largest producer of sodium bicarbonate in the world, apart from being the leader in the Indian market. Tata Chemicals also enjoys leadership in the Indian edible salt market and is the most efficient manufacturer of urea fertiliser in the country. Commenting on the Companys performance for FY 2009, Mr. R Mukundan, Managing Director said: This has been a challenging year for businesses all over and our case is not different. In some international markets for soda ash we are seeing some pressure on volumes and prices. I am happy to say that due to a portfolio of businesses which serve a diverse range of customer base spread across agri, household and industrial sectors, we are well placed. Tata Salt delivered record breaking market share in FY09 and our newly launched salt products are already market leaders. Urea sales have been at its highest ever. It has truly been a year of value management. We have in place a focused efficiency program that we believe would enable us respond to challenges in the environment. Going forward Tata Chemicals will continue to create value for shareholders and customers alike. Note: Consolidated financials indicated in this communication are reviewed and primarily include those of Tata Chemicals

standalone entity, the Brunner Mond Group acquired in December 2005, the one third stake acquisition in Indo Maroc Phosphore S.A. (IMACID) and the acquisition of General Chemicals and Industrial Products acquired in March 2008. YEAR ON YEAR CONSOLIDATED PERFORMANCE COMPARISION FY2009 (April 2008 March 2009) v/s FY2008 (April 2007 March 2008) Income from operations (net of excise) at Rs12,257.66 crore compared to Rs6023.15 crore in FY 2008, an increase of 103 per cent Profit from operations at Rs1,436.48 crore higher by 80 per cent compared with Rs796.19 crore in corresponding period last year Profit before exceptional items and tax down by 9.5 per cent at Rs1,124.6 crore; as against Rs1,243.51 crore (including Rs487.47 crores on account of profit on sale of long-term investments) in the previous year Profit after Tax (PAT) (after Minority Interest) at Rs648.1 crore compared with Rs964.4crore in FY 2008, down by 33 per cent Basic EPS : Rs27.59 Diluted EPS : Rs26.19 Dividend The Board of Directors recommended a final dividend of 90 per cent translating in a total outflow of Rs247.62 Crore including dividend distribution tax. Details of extraordinary items Foreign exchange - AS-11 amendment The Company has exercised the option of AS-11 as per the notification issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on March 31, 2009. Amount amortised for FY 09: Rs125 Cr and amount transferred to the balance sheet Rs360 Cr. To be amortised till March 31st 2011. Reversal of impairment of cement plant Introduction of Masonry cement which utilises fly ash increases opportunity. As a result profits are expected to improve and the company has as a result reversed the impairment of the cement plant. Balance sheet perspective Total cash on the balance sheet as on March 31, 2009 amounted to Rs1,452 crore (inclusive of value of fertiliser bonds of Rs446 crore as on March 31, 2009). Operating cash flows have been and are expected to continue to be healthy lending strength to Tata Chemicals balance sheet and enabling it to support the Companys objective of strengthening its competitive position through a mix of and organic and viable inorganic initiatives as well as efficiency enhancement. The Companys consolidated gross debt as on March 31, 2009 stood at 6,283 crore. This comprises borrowings of USD 475 million taken on the Tata Chemicals balance sheet and a loan of USD 300 million taken on the GCIP balance sheet, both of which have been taken at extremely fine rates. Payment towards the former will commence in June 2012 while towards the latter has begun in February 2009. After deducting cash, value of investments and fertilizer bonds as on March 31, 2009, debt stands at Rs4,831crore. SEGMENTAL PERFORMANCE Soda ash Global and Domestic Industry perspective and outlook The global soda ash industry is presently operating at approximately 75 per cent capacity utilisation in line with

demand. Prices are currently in the range of USD 160-175 FOB China The Government of India has imposed a 20 per cent safeguard duty for a six month period to protect the soda ash industry from Chinese dumping The Chinese government has also reintroduced a 9 per cent export incentive for producers leading to increased production in China While demand in the UK continues to be encouraging, the rest of Europe is witnessing a decline US demand looks to be stabilising; however there are some challenges being witnessed in Latin America which accounts for a considerable portion of GCIP exports Domestic soda ash demand continues to be healthy mainly on the back of traction of the detergents and chemicals segments Consolidated sales amounted to Rs5,415 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2009; PBIT margins for the chemicals business stood at 18.6 per cent for the quarter Mithapur, India Tata Chemicals maintained its leadership position in the domestic soda ash market Sales volumes (including exports) for soda ash at Mithapur for the quarter ended 31March 2009 stood at 695 thousand tonnes. Brunner Mond Group Limited Higher volumes, price increases that effective during three quarters of the year and lower overheads enabled improved performance of BMGL However there is some volume shrinkage now being witnessed and capacity utilisations are being seen to normalise at approximately 70 per cent. Rapid increase in production seems unlikely in the near future Prices in Europe are presently in the region of USD 240 pmt. Increased imports from China into South East Asia has considerably impacted Magadi's performance GCIP While US domestic demand appears to have stabilised, increased Chinese imports into Latin America combined with weaker demand in the region is impacting exports of the Company GCIP has begun a focused cost reduction and cash generation programme to help keep costs under control Consumer Products Tata Chemicals remains market leader with 58.4% market share in the national branded segment V its highest ever. Tata Salt's continues at number one position with market share of about 44 per cent I-shakti sales double YOY Tata Salt Lite has become the market leader in the low sodium salt category within the first year of its launch

CROP NUTRITION BUSINESS (formerly Fertilisers Business) Sales for Q4FY09 from the crop nutrition business were Rs6,912 crore PBIT margins stood at 7.3 per cent Urea production at the Babrala plant has stabilized at over 3,500 tpd levels The quarter under review saw the highest ever urea sales on the back of improved availability after debottlenecking the plant

While DAP consumption in India saw its highest levels ever, prices have corrected over this quarter impacting margins Continuing high phosphoric acid prices may render manufacture of DAP unviable Details of subsidy received & outstanding Total subsidy received in FY 2009 Rs4,264 crore Cash subsidy received in FY 2009 Rs3,245 crore Bonds subsidy received in FY 2009 Rs1,019 crore Total subsidy outstanding as on 31 March 2009 Rs874 crore Details of fertiliser bonds received during the year under review Coupon, year of maturity 7%, 2022 6.2%, 2022 6.65%, 2023 Date of allotment Amt of Bonds Rs Crore) 611.93 123.47 283.66 1019.06 Sold till 28th May 09 (Rs Crore) 516.27 NIL NIL Balance (Rs Crore) 95.66 123.47 123.47 502.79

10th Dec 24th Dec 29th Jan Total

IMACID IMACID resumed operations in the quarter under review Inventory writedowns to current realizable values impacted EBITDA D. NEW BUSINESSES Fresh Produce Operations in Ludhiana stabilising During the quarter the business focussed on cutting costs and improving margins by reaching higher volumes Bio-fuels Feedstock for the 30 KL/day Ethanol plant is being sourced and production is expected to begin soon Trial cultivations of Jatropha for the Biodiesel operations continue smoothly ADAPT The Company has adopted this programme to combat the extremely challenging prevalent macroeconomic environment. Under the three heads below, ADAPT is carrying out the following actions Capex Postponement Focus on Critical, Safety and maintenance Capex; All non critical and non routine capex being deferred Cash Conservation Working Capital management; Cash conversion efficiency; Locking in energy costs, royalty payments; Taking price increases wherever possible; Stringent monitoring of ARs and APs Cost Reduction Reducing wastage; Focus on supply chain efficiencies; Leveraging Scale; Deleveraging, Selling Non Core Assets; Review of raw material contracts; Paring overheads