Indian Cooperative.com is producing below the letter IFFCO MD Mr US Awasthi wrote on the eve of close of the financial year. Credit indeed goes to IFFCO which despite facing scores of challenges both local and global kept its winning streak intact and notched up a profit beyond Rs one thousand crore mark. It is a victory of cooperative, it is a victory of people’s movement.Indian cooperative.com complements Mr Awasthi and his team for the spectacular performance –Editor
If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.
Dear Friends,
This famous quote by Steve Jobs sums up our spirits. It is the vision of a better tomorrow for the Indian farmer that has given us the strength to overcome all obstacles and difficulties we face every year. During the financial year 2011-12 in spite of tremendous local and global challenges in the industry we performed quite well in various fields of production, sales, transportation, energy consumption and finance. As you know that in the last fiscal year the value of rupee took a hit vis a vis the dollar resulting in expensive raw materials and finished products, there were other challenges like losses on Fertiliser bond(s), mopping up and non-payment of subsidy as well as concessions on various counts, but in spite of all this we stood firm to our commitment. We managed our foreign exchange and different costs at a level to avoid a possible retail price hike of our fertilisers in October, 2011. I must mention that the board of IFFCO unanimously chose to shield the farmer from all possible brunt even if it amounted to writing off substantial sum on our balance sheets.
But every cloud has a silver lining and in the backdrop of all these challenges the superlative performance of our plants proved to be the silver lining. During 2011-12, our Phulpur, Aonla and Paradeep units achieved highest ever annual production of fertilisers.
IFFCO produced a total of 84.42 lakh tonne of fertilisers , which includes the highest ever production of 44.87 lakh tonne. The Phulpur-II unit produced its highest ever of 11.33 lakh tonne Urea, Aonla-I produced its highest ever 10.66 lakh tonne of Urea. The Kalol Unit produced 6 lakh MT of Urea consecutively for the third time. The Paradeep Unit produced its highest ever 18.41 lakh tonne of NP/DAP, 20.60 lakh tonne of Sulphuric Acid and 7.45 lakh tonne of Phosphoric Acid. It also transferred 93 thousand MT of Phosphoric Acid to the Kandla Unit. The Kandla Unit produced 21.14 lakh tonne of NP/NPK/DAP/ , its worth mentioning that the composite Specific Energy Consumption of Urea Plants during 2011-12 5.825 GCal/MT of Urea.
In the last year our Kandla Unit started producing Water Soluble and Zinc Sulphate Fertilisers. The Kalol and Phulpur-I units commenced Production of Neem Coated Urea from April 2011 and August 2011, respectively.
Our Marketing division has done exceptionally well and proved their metal under most adverse circumstances of high inventories and not so conducive market conditions by selling 121.85 lakh tonne of fertilisers, dispatched over 124 lakh tonne of fertilisers to different destinations across India during the financial year 2011-12. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our member cooperatives especially marketing federations and cooperative societies who stood by IFFCO even under strong and lucrative offers by competitors and ultimately the spirit of cooperation won over the private initiative. This is a big reason of our stupendous performance.
I am happy to inform you that our flagship, ‘SAVE THE SOIL’ campaign is doing well; an effort to promote balanced fertilisation and improvement of overall soil health, ‘SAVE THE SOIL’ campaign will be gradually expanded.
This, along with various other efforts by our marketing and field staff is worth mentioning.
We expect our Profit Before tax (PBT) during the financial year 2011-12 will be more than Rs.1000 crore with an expected turnover of Rs. 25650 crore. The efficient financial management helped the Society to achieve financial excellence by following dynamic hedging strategies.
The cooperative (team) effort by all the departments is highly commendable in achieving new heights by the society. The perseverance shown by the members of the IFFCO family has taken the society to new highs. This determination, dedication and ‘never give up’ spirit was acknowledged in the form of several awards and accolades that was conferred to IFFCO at various national and international platforms. The India edition of Fortune magazine ranked IFFCO at 1st position in the ‘Fertiliser and Agro Chemicals category’ and ranked IFFCO at the 37th position overall in the Fortune India 500 rankings for the year 2011, I am happy to say that IFFCO was the only cooperative society amongst the top 50 Indian companies in this ranking. Besides this, IFFCO bagged several recognitions and awards for its IT, Human Resource and Technical divisions. All our plants received a plethora of awards and recognition by various organizations like The Fertiliser Association of India during the year 2011-12. We also received awards in the field of industrial safety, environment protection amongst others. It’s worth mentioning that IFFDC won `The Times of India Social Impact Award’ for its excellent performance in the field of improving rural livelihoods and IKSL received the `Coffey International Award’ for its valuable contributions rendered to the farming community.
I am happy to inform you that all our Associates and Joint Ventures are performing well and we are proud of their achievements.
It should be a moment of pride for us that 2012 is being celebrated as the International Year of Cooperatives 2012 by the UN and this should remind us of our higher goal as a cooperative society and as a farmers institution, I am sure that our Society will continue to grow with its unique corporate functioning done with a cooperative spirit and IFFCO will break all the preceding records to emerge as a global leader in the fertiliser market and be a force to reckon with. I am thankful to our Chairman Sh. N.P Patel , our Vice Chairman Sh. B.S Nakai and other distinguished members on the Board of IFFCO for showing the way forward and for drafting immaculate policies.
I am also thankful to Government of India especially the Department of Fertilizers, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperation along with our Joint Venture partners and our Associates around the world along with their respective Governments for extending valuable support and from time to time.
I also take this opportunity to thank the Indian and International Media for their valuable support. Above all, I am thankful to IFFCOs employee unions, officer Associations and all the employees including our contractors, suppliers and their employees for their valuable contribution.
With regards and good wishes.
U S Awasthi
Managing Director,IFFCO