--By Gaurav Aryal
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| Pawan Golyan Chairman, Golyan Group |
The Golyan Group, known to have a strong foothold in the textile industry, is planning to venture into the tourism industry of late. As a first venture into the new sector, a three star hotel is under construction at Baneshwor Height of Kathmandu. Pawan Golyan, Chairman of the group, says that the hotel will start its services within the next two years.
According to Golyan, the hotel’s prime clients will be transit tourists as it will be located close to the Tribhuvan International Airport and Pashupatinath Temple, a popular Hindu shrine. The hotel will have 115 rooms. Golyan reveals that the company will tie up with an international hotel chain once the construction is completed.
The group plans to develop tourism as one of its core sectors. Golyan says that the hotel is being developed as a trial project before leaping into the industry. If things go as planned, the group plans to establish two and three star hotels in industrial hubs such as Biratnagar, Birgunj and Pokhara. “We do not just dive into any business sector. We first try it to understand the scene before we move forward,” he explains.
Weaving the Industrial Base
The Golyan Group was founded by Sohan L Golyan, father of Pawan Golyan around five and a half decades ago with trading. The first manufacturing venture he established was a button factory, after which textile factories followed. In the course of the group’s evolution, it involved itself in manufacturing a wide range of products such as slippers, zippers, audio cassettes among others, but they closed it down later. The textile and fabric based companies, however, lived on.
When business was passed on to the second generation, Pawan Golyan started Reliance Spinning Mills Limited, one of the signature companies of the group. He says that this company registers an annual turnover of roughly Rs 5 billion and employs 3500 labours and 300 executives. Golyan claims that this is one of the largest industries in Nepal in terms of labour size and capital base. The group has invested around Rs 4 billion in this spinning mill alone.
Textile’s Strength
Though the group went on exploring, it also started experimenting with various other sectors, textile manufacturing continued by extending product line from acrylic yarn to pashmina and packing sacks. Golyan says that the group at one point tried steel manufacturing but did not succeed as much as textiles. The group now considers textiles as its specialised sector, whether it is pashmina, cashmere sweaters, yarns or woven sacks.
The group now has five companies specialised in the textiles industry. Reliance Spinning, a state of the art spinning mill, manufactures spun yarns mainly in acrylic, polyester, viscose and blends. The products of this company are mostly exported to India. According to Golyan, 70 per cent of the products are exported to India, 20 to 25 per cent is sold in the domestic market, and the rest are exported to other countries. The company is now working towards producing cotton yarns to meet all domestic requirements.
Similarly, 95 per cent of cashmere and pashmina products produced by two companies - Tricot Industries and Himali Pashmina - are exported to the European, Australian and the US markets. The export surplus is sold in the domestic market through a showroom at Durbarmarg, Kathmandu. Tricot Industries was upgraded to a fully automated system around one and a half year ago.
Products such as circular knitted fabrics and woven sacks produced by Shivam, a third company, have their majority markets beyond Nepal - mostly in India, Bangladesh and Turkey. According to Golyan, around 80 per cent of Shivam Plastic’s products are exported to India while remaining 20 per cent is sold in other countries including Nepal.
Expanding Business
The Golyan Group refrains from expanding the production capacity of its manufacturing units because of power shortage. “If we had 24 hour power supply, we could double the production capacity of Reliance Spinning Mills and create jobs for 4000 people. But most of our factories are operating at 30 to 60 per cent of the installed capacity,” he explains.
Besides this, the group is determined to revive its interest in hydropower business. It had dropped five projects with a total capacity of 20 MW after procedural delays and obstruction from local bodies. Golyan says that the group will start researching other possible projects in the next three months.
| New Model of CSR: Social Enterprise Pawan Golyan, Chairman of Golyan Group is dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and treats his CSR projects as invaluable business ventures. He has adopted two villages in Kailali district and is working for enhancing the livelihood of local people by providing opportunities for sustainable source of income. These two villages have around 340 households with a total population of nearly 1500 people. Nauniya, a village Golyan adopted has a majority of settlements of mukta kamaiya (freed bonded labours). Each household owns a small piece of land provided by the government and a house to live in, built by a donor agency. Golyan says that the male members of the community have been making their living by migrating to India after completing rice cultivation while women are mostly unemployed. Golyan helped install boring pumps for irrigation in the village. Similarly, he also established a training school targeting young women to train them in sewing and knitting. He says the first batch has completed the course and soon will find jobs within the locality. Golyan has also set up a tapari (plate made of leaves) factory. He has not only made investments but has also been managing the manufacturing unit. So far, the company has installed five machines for producing taparis and plans to increase to 30 machines. “Then the factory can employ around 1000 people,” says Golyan. He explains that out of the total profit made through this venture, 20 per cent goes for development work while the rest is used in replicating similar projects in other villages. “I am doing all this to make the project sustainable so that it can continue even if am not there to look after them,” Golyan says. Around five kilometres north from Nauniya, Golyan has adopted another village with same socio economic situation like Nauniya. People have not been involved in income generating activities despite having land to make decent earnings. Golyan went there and requested locals to come up with a list of activities they could be involved in and assured them financial assistance. The group installed boring pumps in the village for irrigation after which the locals started vegetable farming after harvesting paddy. The group has also started a buffalo farming project. For this project, Rs 1.2 million was collected from 12 farmers while the company invested Rs 2 million, which was borrowed as soft loan. Then 26 buffaloes were brought from Haryana, India. To assist the farmers, the group has trained and employed a vet while one person is hired to monitor farmers’ activities to ensure they utilise the earnings in paying back the loan and for purchasing feed for the buffaloes. Golyan wants to develop this project as an example so that it can be replicated in other villages and be a model for fellow businessmen. |
| Some Companies under Golyan Group Textile Manufacturing • Reliance Spinning Mill • Shivam Plastic Industries • Tricot Industries (Formally Makalu Cashmere) • Himali Pashmina Financial Services • NIC Asia Bank Ltd • NMB Bank Ltd • Nepal Life Insurance Company Ltd • Lumbini Bank Ltd • Prudential Insurance Company Ltd International Trade • Atlanta Trading Pvt Ltd • Westar Galaxy Trading Pvt Ltd Real Estate • Westar Properties Pvt Ltd • City Properties Management The group employs around 7000 staff. Pawan Golyan says that none of the companies have faced labour strikes and operation has not halted even for a minute. Cordial relationship maintained with workers has prevented disputes and also helped make employees a part of the Golyan family. Fair dealing and fair treatment to employees is the principle of the group when it comes to human resource management, according to Golyan. He says that the major problem is labour shortage rather than other functional wrangling. Hi-life on Westar Properties Westar Properties Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of the group, founded in 2008 has been developing apartment properties with technical collaboration with Westar Properties, Dubai. According to Golyan, 212 apartments are almost ready to be handed over to their buyers. “We have delivered better quality than what we promised. There are no other projects in my knowledge that match the quality, facilities and price of this project, even in India,” he claims. The group is planning to develop another high-end residential high-rise apartment at Soaltee Mode with premium facilities. According to Golyan, this new property will have state-of-the-art facilities including a gym, cinema hall, squash court, badminton and tennis courts, a jogging track and oxygen room among others. Golyan promises to complete this project by the first quarter of 2015. Some Companies under Golyan Group Textile Manufacturing •Reliance Spinning Mill •Shivam Plastic Industries •Tricot Industries (Formally Makalu Cashmere) •Himali Pashmina Financial Services •NIC Asia Bank Ltd •NMB Bank Ltd •Nepal Life Insurance Company Ltd •Lumbini Bank Ltd •Prudential Insurance Company Ltd International Trade •Atlanta Trading Pvt Ltd •Westar Galaxy Trading Pvt Ltd Real Estate • Westar Properties Pvt Ltd • City Properties Management The group employs around 7000 staff. Pawan Golyan says that none of the companies have faced labour strikes and operation has not halted even for a minute. Cordial relationship maintained with workers has prevented disputes and also helped make employees a part of the Golyan family. Fair dealing and fair treatment to employees is the principle of the group when it comes to human resource management, according to Golyan. He says that the major problem is labour shortage rather than other functional wrangling. Hi-life on Westar Properties Westar Properties Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of the group, founded in 2008 has been developing apartment properties with technical collaboration with Westar Properties, Dubai. According to Golyan, 212 apartments are almost ready to be handed over to their buyers. “We have delivered better quality than what we promised. There are no other projects in my knowledge that match the quality, facilities and price of this project, even in India,” he claims. The group is planning to develop another high-end residential high-rise apartment at Soaltee Mode with premium facilities. According to Golyan, this new property will have state-of-the-art facilities including a gym, cinema hall, squash court, badminton and tennis courts, a jogging track and oxygen room among others. Golyan promises to complete this project by the first quarter of 2015. |
