Category Archives: Business & Economy

Kozhikode set to be hub for garment industry

Business & Economy

Kozhikode :

The city is set to make a mark in the garment industry. Under the title ‘Vasthra Mandalam’ the expertise of over 500 women skilled in designing and tailoring will be utilized for developing Kozhikode South into a major hub of apparel industry.

Apparel stitching and readymade garment units will be set up after imparting performance improvement training to select women. The Vasthra Mandalam project will be implemented in a phased manner and 100 women will be selected and trained in the first phase.

“The first batch of 60 women will be imparted performance improvement training at National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) Kannur from October 16 to 26,” said Mohammed Basheer, coordinator of the project. The participants will be imparted residential training in such a way that the garments they produce can be branded and marketed, he said.

The Vasthra Mandalam scheme is initiated by social justice minister M K Muneer, MLA of Kozhikode South assembly constituency. The minister has also started discussions with garment brands across the country to cooperate with the scheme in such a way that the garment brand will supply the material and the women groups here will stitch the garment based on their demand.

Women who are presently running small tailoring units at home and small shops will be selected for the project with an aim to give them better training, exposure and regular income, said Mohammed Basheer, who is also the coordinator of Kozhikode district Kudumbashree mission. The project also aims to train women in designing wedding dresses and ornamentation , he added.

After the training programme at NIFT, women will be divided into different groups based on their skills. Women having expertise in stitching, cutting, designing, packing and other garment related works will be grouped together for the efficient functioning of the apparel units. A total of 60 women will be imparted training at NIFT at a cost of Rs 8 lakh. The garment units having state-of-the-art stitching, embroidery and other machinery will be started with financial assistance from banks. Women for Vasthra Mandalam will be selected by faculty of NIFT after practical and written tests. The tests would be conducted at mobilization camps. Facilitation units will be set up at six locations in the constituency by utilizing the local area development fund and asset development fund of M K Muneer.

source:  http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kozhikode / TNN / October 11th, 2015

Learning the Honey Business

Agriculture, Business & Economy

Participants at the programme on Beekeeping held at ICAR- Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Peruvannamuzhi
Participants at the programme on Beekeeping held at ICAR- Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Peruvannamuzhi

Kozhikode :

Beekeeping is a ludicrous business and a healthy profit can be gleaned if it is done after obtaining the proper training. A district level training programme on Beekeeping was organised at ICAR-Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Peruvannamuzhi.

Classes on different species of honeybees, their behaviour, bee colony maintenance, significance of beekeeping, pest and disease management in Apiary (a place where bees are kept; a collection of beehives), different by-products of beekeeping etc were covered during the three day programme. Practical session on Beekeeping was also organised at District Agricultural Farm, Koothali and KVK, Peruvannamuzhi.

The trainees will be issued certificates and they are also eligible for obtaining beehives and other accessories at 40 per cent subsidy by the Horticorp.

A total of 36 trainees including rural youth and farm women from Kunnummal, Balusserry, Naduvannur, Thodannur, Chelannur and Perambra blocks of the district participated while 27 participants completed the training course successfully.

The training programme was led by K K Aiswariya, subject matter specialist (Plant Protection) of KVK.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Kerala / by Express News Service / October 09th, 2015

Public welcome first pvt reservation centre in state

Business & Economy, Records, All

Kozhikode :

The first private reservation centre ‘yatri ticket suvidha kendra’ (YTSK) of the Railways in the state, has been receiving a good response from the passengers. A good number of passengers who have visited the centre to buy Janasadharan tickets approached the centre asking inquiries about the available services at the centre.

The union government introduced the concept of YTSK to curb black marketing in the sale of railway tickets.

The centre, which is the second YTSK centre under the southern railways, will help the passengers to book and cancel all the tickets including tatkal tickets. Passengers can book AC tatkal tickets from 10.30am and non-AC from 11.30am onwards. The private reservation centre has four counters and a special counter for inquiry. The centre also has seating facilities for the passengers approaching for booking.

In case of cancellation, 50 % of the charge will be deducted and remaining amount will be refunded to the given bank account.

C E Chakkunny, working chairman, Confederation of All India Rail Users’ Association said that though the private reservation counter is helpful for passengers, the service charge of Rs 30 fixed to book sleeper class and Rs 40 for all other classes is actually high. “The railway should reduce the service charge as the existing service charged fixed to book tickets from the private reservation centres cannot be afforded by passengers. The centre is a blessing in disguise as only one counter in the fourth platform is working and another one is not operational which is causing problems to passengers during peak hours. The counters in the first platform are insufficient to meet the growing demands of passengers during the peak hours,” he said. “The railway should put up more counters and make the inactive counters functional to help the passengers to book the tickets without remitting service fee,” he said.

N Lekha, a passenger said that the centre is a blessing as the passengers can book tickets till late night and even on Sunday afternoons. “We can avoid standing in long queues at the railway station during peak hours,” she said.

Meanwhile, K K Vinod Kumar, owner of Prapanjam Tours and Travels, said that around 300 people booked their ticket on the first day. “Since the centre’s opening on Friday, on the first day the centre saw people approaching for inquiry purpose.

All the counters will be made fully functional once the number of passengers increases in the coming days. The advantage is that the railway passengers who reach the station after 7 pm can easily make advanced booking as

The centre is open till 10pm from Monday to Saturday and on Sunday, it will function from 8.30am to 8pm. The railway closes its centre at 2 pm on Sunday,” he said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kozhikode / TNN / September 27th, 2015

Kannur flew, way before its first airport

Business & Economy, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All, Travel

Kannur :

Kannur is all set to take wings with authorities of the Kannur International Airport burning the midnight oil to ensure that commercial operations at the airport begin by mid-2016.

However, this will not be the region’s first brush with airline operations. Not many know that the first flight to the state had landed in this cantonment town – decades before the Kannur airport was conceptualized. The DH83 Fox Moth aircraft of Tata Airlines was the maiden flight of that operator to Kerala, under the patronage of Maharaja Chithira Thirunal, the last king of Travancore.

The operator started the service to Kerala on October 29, 1935, after the frequency of the Karachi-Madras flight, was increased to twice a week in 1934, according to the website of Tata. The weekly service between Bombay and Trivandrum had stops at Goa and Cannanore. Though Kannur was not a commercial stop, the small aircraft had to land here for refuelling. It was the time of the British reign and Kannur cantonment had an airstrip as the military headquarters here used to have several airmail from Bombay.

“The first passengers were JRD Tata’s colleague Jal Naoroji and the well-known Bombay merchant Seth Kanji Dwarkadas, the latter wearing a traditional dhoti, a long black dagalo coat and a small black cap,” the website says.

Seeing the flight was nothing short of a great spectacle and children in the town went as if they were going to watch a festival, remembered Captain Krishnan Nair in his autobiography ‘Krishna Leela’.

“It was in the Fort Ground that the aircraft landed… and even now that feeling of wonder is in my heart. The ‘Pushapakavimana’ we heard of in the epics is here in the Kannur Fort Ground, we said in mind. We kids shouted and some of us wanted to touch it. But since there were security personnel there we couldn’t,” wrote Captain Krishnan Nair in his autobiography ‘Krishna Leela’.

The flight put Kannur on India’s airline map though it had no airport, according to Madhu Kayarat a former employee with Peirce & Leslie, the ticketing agent for Tata’s air service.

“And if the information I got from my seniors at Peirce & Leslie is correct, the first flight had birthday greeting for the Maharaja from Lord Willingdon, the viceroy, and a copy of The Times of India, making the most prominent daily newspaper in the country available to a Malayali reader on the day of its printing,” he said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kozhikode / by P. Sudhakaran, TNN / September 14th, 2015

Honey in all its varied sweetness

Agriculture, Business & Economy, Green Initiatives & Environment, Nature

 HoneyKERALA11sept2015

Festival includes training for bee keepers and a session on epitherapy

The seventh edition of the honey festival got underway at VJT Hall here on Wednesday. The four-day festival provides the people of the city an opportunity to taste several varieties of honey and familiarise themselves with a plethora of honey-based products.

Hundreds of honey farmers from different parts of the State are part of the festival and are displaying their unique honey varieties. The festival is being jointly organised by the Federation of Indigenous Apiculturists (FIA), State Horticultural Mission, Kerala Agricultural University, State Biodiversity Board, and Horticorp.

The varieties range from Coorg honey and Wayanadan honey to sunflower honey, stingless bee honey and several others.

Also on sale are honey products such as honey wax, soaps and facial creams, and many products with honey as their base. Hives of stingless bees, Newton bees, honey extractors, and other honey production equipment are also on display.

A training programme is being conducted for apiculturists (bee keepers) over these four days. The training will also include a day’s session on epitherapy, the treatment of various illnesses using honey and allied products.

Mission and museum

According to C. Manojkumar, a breeder from Kannur, the annual honey festivals in the capital city have helped the apiculturists earn good profits in a short time.

“At last year’s festival, my stall had sales of around Rs.4-5 lakh. The total sale across all the stalls was well above Rs.50 lakh. This year, the government has announced that a State Honey Mission will be formed under the Horticultural Mission. Also, a honey museum on the lines of the Central Bee Research Institute is also being planned in Kannur,” says Mr. Manojkumar.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Thiruvananthapuram / by Staff Reporter / Thursday – September 10th, 2015

Coconut wood furniture unit to take off soon

Arts,Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Green Initiatives & Environment, Nature

Department of Wood Science, Kerala Agricultural University and Coconut Development Board have joined hands to set up a furniture demonstration unit that will tap the abundance of coconut timber supply in the State.

The project, for which an outlay of Rs. 50 lakh has been sanctioned, is linked to Coconut Board’s ongoing replanting and rejuvenation of coconut gardens programme. The Board is providing aid to coconut farmers to remove senile palms and to replace them with new ones.

According to an estimate by the Board, there are a total of 18 million coconut palms in the State of which 14,83,107 have been reported to be senile.

This implies that there is abundant supply of coconut timber in the State though the palms are now cut down and mostly wasted, said E.V. Anoop of the Wood Science Department.

A Board official said that the removal of senile and sick palms was in progress. Root-wilt affected palms are concentrated in the districts of Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, Kottayam and Idukki though the Coconut Board programme is on throughout the State.

The furniture unit is meant to make export-oriented, high-end furniture. It is also expected that people in Kerala will give up their apparent aversion to using coconut timber for making furniture.

The furniture unit, which will be a technology demonstration facility, is being set up in collaboration with the Kodungalloor Coconut Producer Company and Kerala Furniture Consortium, said Mr. Anoop.

The response has been positive as coconut producer companies and furniture-makers are eager to utilise the new opportunity, he added. The venture will work on a value chain model involving coconut timber extraction, conversion on site, design and manufacture. One of the most difficult areas for farmers now is to find labour for cutting down the palms and transporting the timber.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by K.A.Martin / Kochi – August 27th, 2015

Cochin International Airport becomes world’s first to operate on solar power

Business & Economy, Green Initiatives & Environment, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion

Kochi :

Chief minister Oommen Chandy inaugurated the 12 MWp (megawatt peak) solar power plant at the Cochin International Airport Ltd (Cial) on Tuesday.

The plant, comprising 46,150 solar panels laid across 45 acres in the cargo complex, will enable Cochin airport to produce 50,000 to 60,000 units of solar power every day for its operations. Airport authorities claimed that this would technically makes the airport ‘absolutely power neutral’.

Cial first ventured into solar power sector in March 2013 when they installed a 100 kWp (kilowatt peak) solar plant on the rooftop of the arrival terminal. Installed by the Kolkata-based Vikram Solar Private Ltd, the plant was a trendsetter in the field of grid-connected solar energy (one without any battery storage) in Kerala.

Later, they installed a 1 MWp solar power plant partly on the rooftop and partly on the ground in the aircraft maintenance hangar facility on the airport premises. This plant was installed by Emvee Photovoltaic Power Pvt Ltd and is the first megawatt-scale installation of solar PV system in Kerala.

After commissioning these plants, Cial has so far saved more than 550MT of CO2 emission. Over the next 25 years, this green power project will avoid carbon dioxide emissions from coal fired power plants by more than three lakh metric tonnes, which is equivalent to planting 30 lakh trees.

Cial is now in the process of setting up a 12MWp solar PV plant as part of its green initiatives. This will come up in an area of about 45 acres near the international cargo premises. The work has been awarded to Bosch Ltd and is expected to generate around 48,000 units per day. Along with the electricity generated from the existing 1.10 MWp plants, this would be sufficient to meet the power requirement of the airport, officials said.

Later in the day, the annual general body meeting of Cial approved the recommendation of director board to give a dividend of 21% to all its shareholders. The total earning of Cial in 2014-15 was Rs 413.96 crore, an increase of 19.69% compared with the previous year. The airport made a profit of Rs 144.58 crore in 2014-15, which is 16.25% compared with the previous year. The number of passengers touched 64 lakhs. “The new international terminal will become functional by 2016,” added Chandy, who is also the chairman of Cial.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kochi / August 31st, 2015

Women Power Kerala’s Growing Biz Ventures

Business & Economy, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features

Women entrepreneurs attending an event
Women entrepreneurs attending an event

Kochi :

When Sheeba S began selling rice and wheat flour and later cashew nuts and powdered pepper in small packets from a makeshift room attached to her small house in Kollam—an old seaport and city on the Laccadive Sea coast in Kerala—her immediate objective was to make both ends meet and if lucky to get one or two ‘mom and pop’ stores to sell the products. Twelve years into her journey as an entrepreneur, Sheeba’s Amba Foods is now taking the business to the next level—bar coding the products to give them wider acceptability especially in supermarkets, and building a new unit that will have much  higher capacity.

Bindu Pallickal began selling ‘kachiya enna’, the traditional homemade conditioner, back in 2007. Now, she sells about 21 products including home-made jam, ‘thali podi’ and Brahmi oil under her unit Athira Herbal.

Sheeba and Bindu are not isolated cases. There are several hundreds of women in Kerala who are looking to expand their tiny business ventures—which are into selling anything from curry powders to pickles and jams, garments to home-made soaps, ready-to-eat items and other baking products—to running home stays, cafes, retail shops and IT firms across the state.

It is estimated that there are at least 70,000 enterprises run by women  under the Kudumbashree, an women-empowering project run by the Kerala government. The Economic Review 2014 says, 25 per cent (58,562) of the 2,34,251 working small scale industry and micro small and medium entreprises (SSI/MSME) units in the state are run by women.

Kerala State Industrial  Development Corporation (KSIDC), in fact, has plans to handhold the high-potential women-run ventures to scale up their business to a much bigger scale. “Our plan is to shortlist 150-200 most promising ventures from across the state. We will narrow down the list to may be 25-50 for mentoring and funding to help them scale up their operations,” said B Jyothi Kumar, executive director of KSIDC. The ‘We Summit’ to be held in Kochi on November 19, the UN Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, will be a step in this direction, said KSID officials. Over 2,000 women entrepreneurs are expected to attend the event.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> The Sunday Standard / by  Rajesh Abraham / August 16th, 2015

KUFOS to promote vannamei shrimp farming

Agriculture, Business & Economy, Nature, World Opinion

Minister for Fisheries K. Babu has said that the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS) will popularise vannamei shrimp farming across the State.

In his inaugural address at the two-day training and aqua-expo on the prospects of Litopenaeus Vannamei, an exotic white shrimp, here on Thursday, Mr. Babu urged the shrimp farmers to speed up the process of ushering in a vannamei revolution in the State.

Compared to the other States in the country, we are very late to earn profits out of vannamei culture, the Minister said.

He said that KUFOS would organise training programme in each districts to spread vannamei shrimp farming.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Special Correspondent / Kochi – August 21st, 2015

Treasured heirloom

Business & Economy

ManjushaKERALA17aug2015

Manjusha Mohan has given her family textile business a new spin with her brand of silk shirts

Two years into the family business at Kannur, Manjusha Mohan updated her LinkedIn profile, readied her apartment in Bengaluru; all set to relocate. Then she changed her mind, and stuck on. The engineer who had worked in Bengaluru and the U.S. returned to Kannur to help her father with his textile business, G. Sons and Company. The company, besides having textile stores in Kannur and West Asia, is known for its Dennis Morton brand of shirts, especially silk shirts which retail from stores across the State, Tamil Nadu and Dubai.

Manjusha quit a well-paying, cushy job which, despite the stress, she enjoyed. Sceptical about returning after living nine years outside Kerala, she came home to a job that demanded a different set of skills. “I had no idea…I couldn’t tell fabric from fabric, cotton from synthetics. I didn’t know the ABC of weaving, but I learnt.” The learning curve was steep but, with her father’s help, she learnt.

And she has taught herself well. Today besides retailing from leading textile stores in the State, Dennis Morton has an online store and is launching a new line of shirts targeted at the younger demographic. And she is the operations head of, what is possibly Kerala’s only ‘wedding mall’, G. Mall in Kannur. She is also the chairman of the women’s wing of the North Malabar Chamber of Commerce, at 34 one of the youngest.

Stepping into her father’s shoes was not easy, especially in a business where gender roles are set in stone. Most of the workers in the factory are men and taking orders from a woman didn’t sit well with them unlike the IT industry from which she came. Over time they got used to it.

Her father O. Mohanan set up the business, G’Sons Group. From a single textile store, Kalavastralaya, the business grew to include G’Sons Readymades, Anaswara Silks and Saris, Kalpaka Silks (Baharain), G’Sons Gents Gallery and G’Sons Apparels and then came Dennis Morton, which is a part of the latter company.

“You may not have thought it was an Indian brand?” she asks. She was in Kochi on business. Dennis Morton is just a name, in case you are wondering. It was catchy name which Mohanan liked and named his line of ready to wear shirts thus. Apart from regular shirts, the company came out with an innovative product – the silk shirt – when ready-to-wear silk shirts were not widely available.

“At the time there was no market for silk shirts but Dennis Morton created a niche for itself. It told men they could also wear silk,” Manjusha says. Initially it was ‘wedding shirts’ – the creams and the whites – to which were later added colours. When mundus (dhotis) were innovated, with coloured borders, the brand came out with the matching mundu-silk shirt combinations. “This led to the trend of couples being colour co-ordinated in silk.”

Today she sources fabric, approves fabric and is on the lookout for new things. “I was on the verge of quitting every day of the first two years.” But she refused to quit. Just when she thought she had settled in the business, came Gmall. The learning process started all over, only this time it was about cement mixing and plastering. She also turned interior designer with the Mall, when she ended up designing the interiors of its food court.

The oldest of two daughters, Manjusha is both son and daughter to him. “My father brought us up with the belief that there was nothing we couldn’t achieve.” She had her education in Kannur and did her engineering from LBS College of Engineering, she says with pride that she was the first from her class to be placed and that too at Infosys.

Her plans include branding Dennis Morton silk shirts as a standalone brand. Silk shirts, traditionally associated with older men, because of the comfort fit is a put off for youngsters.

With this range Manjusha steps out her comfort zone. “This is not formal wear, it’s party wear for youngsters and will be very different from the kind associated with us.” She has roped in designer Sameera Saneesh as designer who has designed shirts for Dennis Morton before and actor Rahman is the brand ambassador.

Work is hectic and she has little time to relax, she says. “My six-year-old daughter wants me to read her a story every night. And she complains if I don’t make time. But it is good…,” she signs off.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Fashion / by Shilpa Nair Anand / Kochi – August 13th, 2015