| These transporters have successfully carried the great Punjabi entrepreneurial spirit to Kolkata. Putting the turmoil of Partition behind them, the migrants from Pakistan struggled to sustain a living in divided Punjab. Most settled in the north itself while others started migrating to other states for better opportunities. Kolkata was one major draw.
While the transport business was already a lucrative option in Punjab, the newly arrived population tested waters in Kolkata—succeeding with a flourish. They floated transport companies worked on them and built empires from scratch. Today, they are the kingpins of fat trucking empires and are happy to acknowledge that the land of rossogolla and misti doi has accepted them with open arms. When Simply Punjabi met four of the big league players in the east, all expressed their satisfaction at calling the shots from the City of Joy:
Satish Sharma
All geared up to take his transport business through the technological highway, 39-year-old Satish Sharma confesses his penchant for electronic gadgets. He says, "You have to change with the times, or else the advancing times leave you behind." No wonder he has bifurcated his expanding business into two—the original transport business, Carrying Corporation of India or CCI, and the other, CCI Logistics Limited, a logistics and sales company that maximises services and interaction with clients.
When Sharma's father, Bishambhar Dayal Sharma, migrated from Hissar in Haryana, he started a business of manufacturing chemicals. Sharma says the family came to Kolkata because of some relatives who lived here. It was only as late as 1975 that the family decided to start a transport company, as that was more profitable than mixing chemical potions. Back then, the company was called Bombay Road Carriers, which was later changed to CCI. Currently, the company owns 200 trucks earning Rs 19 crore annually. The logistics company does better, bringing in Rs 50 crore every year. Its clients include Hewlett-Packard, Dupont, Biostad, Bata and Pepsico. Sharma says he is always on the look out for new systems that will benefit his business. "We can now track our cargo on the highways because of the special software that we have customised from the US. There are linkages between all our 50 branches in the country," he says proudly. Sharma's party circuit includes close friends and family, who gather either at home or the Lakeland Country Club, where he swims to unwind. Spending time with his children gets top priority, with his cars, an Innova and Ford Ikon, coming a close second. The future looks good. "We are opening a logistics park in Mumbai.
Being a national player, it is very important to make your presence felt in all regions. Kolkata is the melting pot of the eastern region and we are here to showcase our strength." Spoken like a true son of Punjab. Haranjeet Singh
He owns a mammoth establishment but is too shy to boast about it.
Haranjeet Singh, all of 47 years, balances a transport business along with a bunch of educational institutes, a steel company and infrastructure set-ups. But ask him about his establishments and the modest reply is, "My father is behind the educational institutes. My brothers handle the other establishments. I am involved only in the transport business." The truth is that his entrepreneurial skills are intrinsically linked with the escalating empire. Northern Cargo Services (NCS), today's huge transport entity with 350 trucks, LPG tankers and containers, was nowhere near neality when Singh's father, Sardar Jodh Singh, migrated from Pakistan to Ludhiana with—hold your breath—eight buffalos. "As he gradually expanded his dairy business, he thought of doing something in the education sector in Punjab. What followed was a string of educational institutes and subsequently this transport business. That was 1983 and we all came down to Kolkata because the transport business here was unexplored,"
says Singh. With an annual turnover of Rs 45 crore, the company is sitting comfortably. "My work entails a lot of travel as we have 22 offices all over the country," he says. NCS does business with giants such as Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum, J K Tyres, Haldia Petrochemicals, Hindustan Papers, Vikrant Tyres and Dunlop Tyres.
So what does the introvert Singh do when he is not making money? "Movies are my passion, the older the better. I also spend quiet evenings with friends at Punjab Club and Lakeland Country Club. But spending time with the family is more precious," says the man who prefers simple dal-roti to anything fancy. "The field is getting competitive, but I am perfectly fine ruling from here. In difficult times, there is Wahe Guru to bail me out," he adds. Harvinder Singh Vij
A party animal to the core, 52-year-old Harvinder Singh Vij is taking life a little easy after building up a 350-strong fleet carrier business in 23 years. The reprieve is courtesy his 26-year-old son Gajinder, who has taken over the reins of Pal Goods Transport Company (PGTC). Yet, Vij can hardly take his mind off business. Just as he prepares to have his lunch of dal makhni and butter naan, his son storms into the room. "There is a problem," he says. "Ours is a high-tension job,"
says Vij. "But when the annual turnover is a healthy Rs 20 crore, we feel happy that that the promises made to our father have been fulfilled."
Vij's entrepreneurial skills have helped the company branch out to 150 centres across the country. The company was started by his father, Swinder Singh Vij, who migrated from Rawalpindi. After earning his living by driving trucks in Ludhiana, he bought two trucks to launch the company in 1955. That was in Nagpur. Soon the sons joined the family business and the company expanded with a flourish. Harvinder was sent to Kolkata and soon the Vij family registered their head office here. "It is easier over here, though sometimes we face problems because Kolkata is still not exactly business-friendly. But we have lived almost our entire lives here," says Gajinder, who is a regular in the city's party circle. Vij senior relaxes every evening in the company of friends at Punjab Club or Saturday Club while his son is a member and avid rugby player at Calcutta Cricket and Football Club. With six cars (a Honda City, a Lancer and two Boleros), the Vijs believe in living in style. Asked whether they will ever shift base, both father and son vehemently shake their heads. "The business is growing like never before. The city is friendly. The restaurants and pubs are happening. Why should we move?" they say. Point taken. Titoo Baweja
Titoo Baweja is discussing business plans with his nephew, 20-year-old Harneet. "The notion about this business is that we are loud Punjabis hollering at our workers. Actually, it's very different. We are sending our sons and daughters abroad to master business tactics," says the director of New General Trading (NGT) & Transport Corporation.
Forty-four-year-old Gurjagmeet Singh Baweja, more famous as Titoo, is going for a new "moving advertisement concept" floated by Harneet, who is off to Manila for an MBA degree. "We will be adorning our container trucks with vinyl advertisement boards. They will reap rich profits," says Baweja.
"I feel proud to have reached these heights considering that my father faced troubled times when he migrated from Pakistan after partition.
He owned one truck in Punjab. After some time, he went to Orissa and worked as a labourer in Sambalpur. He saw that people needed trucks to transport the raw materials from the factories to the construction sites and decided to come to Kolkata to float this company," recalls Baweja. "After some years we began specialising in containers because that ensured better and safer transport."
NGT clients include companies such as Apollo Tyres, Philips India Limited, Hindalco, Britannia, J K Tyres and Samsung. The company, with an annual turnover of Rs 20 crore, owns 100 containers and controls another 200 owned by other companies. The registered head office is in Kolkata, but there are 24 other offices in the country.
You can often catch Baweja teeing off at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, and he has played and won many tournaments. Though work demands his attention 24x7, he finds time for his favourite Italian and Chinese food. "Kolkata is going to be the best city soon. I am sentimentally attached to it," he says.
True Punjabis at heart, this bunch seems to have won over the east too.
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