From supplying rice to managing pests
Meeting Nakur Sripad Rao, the father of the Indian pest control industry and the founder of Pest Control (India ) Pvt. Limited at his landmark Pali Hill residence in Mumbai has been an interesting experience. He has been living there from 1959 with his Armenian wife Lily (who passed way in 2002) and an extended family of children and grand children. Going 89, he has shifted focus to humanitarian works, leaving the family’s 54 year old pest control business to the younger generation. His office room is cosy, he is surrounded by books and mementos and there is greenery all around. “I am so contented and happy today. Starting with my two brothers, one worker and with a working capital of just र 3000 in 1954, Pest Control (India) Private Limited has grown today to have 3500 employees and have branches all over India.”
How has the journey been? It all started in Tehran , Iran in 1940. Sripad, then barely 20 years old, was working in the army supply section of the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation, during the second World War, in charge of supplying rice, sugar, jute and other articles received from leased lands to the Russian region. He was also in charge of fumigating the war supplies. The food was often infested with pests and he wanted to do something about this once he returned home. He started the first pest control company Goodwill Pest Control in Mumbai in 1946. His wife and two children were with him then, but later moved to the native town Karkala in Karnataka, South India. “I used Swiss Company Geigy’s DDT, Zinc phosphide and also imported Warfarin.” But, things were not going as expected, despite the fact that Sripad got Kailashpati Singhania of JK Group as his first client. “There was no awareness of the need to control pests” says he. “There was a client from Marine Lines who wanted me to catch the rats alive from his house and release them in his neighbour’s house!”
When his first venture folded up, Singhania gave him the job of a horticulturist cum estate manager. After Independence, things started looking up and he called back his family. His heart was still in pest control and in 1951 he restarted the business with his elder brother while still working with the JK group. While his brother worked during the day, Sripad worked carried out fumigation work during the night. As the business picked up, he formed Pest Control (India) Pvt Limited in 1954 with his two brothers. In 1960, he became a member of the National Pest Control Association, visited the UK and trained at Rentokil. “Today, PCI is a र 200 crore company. I toiled in the beginning. My only aim was to give employment to people.”
The senior Rao says he owes his and PCI’s success to his wife who possessed tremendous energy be it in the matters of the company or the staff, or in holding the family together. Together they nurtured their love for nature and greenery: Sripad started Friends of Trees in 1957 and the first flower show was held in the same year. He has developed a farm in Karjat and is planning an eye hospital there. He is still the Chairman of various organizations. For, people like him are not allowed to retire
