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Feature

MAGAZINE | JUL 24, 2010

ENTERPRISE

Sawdust Tycoon
Ameena entered a business seen to be a male bastion. Today, she is turning a handsome profit selling sawdust.
AHONA GHOSH

ands on hips, A Ameena looks on with satisfaction as sawdust flies all around her. Before her is a 20-tonne pulveriser
grinding sawdust into finer granules. Far from being bothered by the noise and dust, Ameena is pleased, and as she surveys
the scene in PJP Industries plant in Pondicherry, she cannot help but smile. The sawdust has given her a livelihood and has
helped her break free from the cultural restraints imposed on her by religion and gender.
Twelve years ago, it was a different story. When the burqa-clad woman knocked on the doors of the Pondicherry Municipality
seeking permission to open a sawdust pulversing plant, officials scoffed at her

. She had to wait for months to get the clearance. I was a Muslim woman
wearing a burqa. Government officials couldnt accept me as a serious
businesswoman, says Ameena.
Ameena was the first woman entrepreneur to evince interest in the union
territorys sawdust pulverising industry. The business is an extremely
competitive one and hinges on securing a steady supply of raw material from
sawmill owners. Besides, running a plant with heavy machinery was a tough
job and not one associated with women. So, she faced an uphill task in
pursuing her dream.

"Government offi
cials could not
accept a burqa-clad
Muslim woman as
a serious
businesswoman

But there were some things that were going in Ameenas favour. One was her sheer pluck. Right from her childhood she had
always wanted to do something on her own. It also helped that she was born in an entrepreneurial family. Her father as well
as her brothers ran plants pulverising various products. After completing her studies at the government-run Small Industries
Service Institute in Pondicherry, Ameena cut her teeth in the family business by working at her fathers plant for about seven
years. But she wanted to do something on her own. My father always encouraged me to dream. He wanted me to be careeroriented, says Ameena.
First Steps
When she was sure that she had learnt the trade, Ameena secured a loan of Rs 17 lakh and opened a pulverising plant of
her own. Working the phones, she persuaded sawmills producing sawdust to sell their by-product to her. Her fathers
contacts helped her to find buyers as well. However, the big break came when she struck a deal with Godrej Sara Lee, a

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household insecticide company. Two years ago, she secured a contract to supply pulverised sawdust to the Godrej Group
company, which uses it in formulations for mosquito repellent coils so they burn longer.
One condition that Godrej put forward was that she supply exclusively to the companythat meant letting go of her other
clients. It is a mutually beneficial agreement as different clients have different requirements. It helps if the supplier focuses
wholly on one product, says M Jagadeesh, Deputy General Manager, Procurement and Vendor, Godrej Sara Lee.
On her part, Ameena is happy. She received a Rs 40 lakh investment from the company to scale up her operations. There
are so many suppliers dying to work with a company like Godrej. This is a big achievement for me, she says smiling.
Besides putting in money, Godrej helps out by providing inputs on quality management, energy conservation and inventory
management. She has enough experience and knowledge. We just help her develop her professional expertise, says
Jagadeesh.
The initiative is part of Godrejs plans to increase representation of people from marginalised communities in its supplier
base. Such initiatives provide sustainable livelihood options to small entrepreneurs like Ameena. Another takeway from such
associations is that the entrepreneurs get to share industry expertise and best practices. Says K Somanathan, Executive
Vice-President (Product Supply Organisation), Godrej Sara Lee: A Muslim woman entrepreneur is uncommon in this kind of
business. Ameena is very capable. So we encouraged her.
With one grinding machine and 12 employees, the first plant set up by Ameena had the capacity to process about 150 tonnes
of sawdust a month. Now, with the help of a Rs 1 crore bank loan and the Rs 40 lakh investment from Godrej, she plans to
build another one in Bahour, Pondicherry, with four grinding machines and a monthly capacity of 500 tonnes.
In FY09, PJP Industries recorded revenues of Rs 1 crore. Ameena claims the company makes an annual net profit of
approximately Rs 1.75 lakh. She hopes the figure will increase four-fold next year, once the new plant goes into operation.
The new unit, together with the old one, will supply Godrej 650 tonnes of pulverised sawdust each month. The company
requires around 1,0002,000 tonnes every month. Currently, the requirement for sawdust across India is about 50,000
tonnes per year. The estimated value of this market is Rs 37-40 crore. The industry is seeing 6-7% growth year-on-year,
says Somanathan. Ameena claims her company is growing 15-20% annually.
Since signing the deal with Ameena, Godrej has been buying sawdust from her plant at a discounted rate of Rs 7,500 per
tonne. The current market rates are
Rs 8,000-Rs 9,000 for a tonne of sawdust.
New Horizons
Despite tasting success, Ameena isnt contenther horizons have now widened. She wants to move beyond being a raw
material supplier to making the final product. In future, I plan to try my hand at the mosquito-coil manufacturing business and
will discuss this option with Godrej, she says.
That plan may take some time to see the light of day. Meanwhile, Ameena is busy meeting with and discussing regulatory
matters with the Pondicherry Municipality officials for her new plant. None of them scoff at her. On the contrary, each of them
greets her with a beaming smile. A lot has changed in the past 12 years.
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