Revision as of 10:53, 25 June 2016

Indane

The Indane story, 1965-2015; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Oct 11 2015

The Times of India, Oct 11 2015

Sanjay Dutta

 Indane: A Superbrand after 50 yrs that now lights fire in 9cr kitchens

The journey of PaHal, government's direct subsidy transfer scheme, into the Guinness Book of World Records hides a remarkable story of the making of a `Superbrand'.

Indane, the brand under which the country's largest fuel retailer IndianOil sells its cooking gas, rules nearly nine crore kitchens -or a little over 18 lakh LPG consumers in the country who have made PaHal the world's largest cash transfer scheme.

Today , the brand may have become a generic name for cooking gas. But unknown to people, its journey through the last 50 years into the portals of great brands has not been easy . From a humble beginning in October 1965, with two dealerships in Kolkata and Patna, and a consumer base of around 2,000, the brand has grown through the marketing nightmare of fighting dogmas and misconceptions about the “new fuel“ as well as administrative apathy .

Ramesh Sikka was allotted one of the first three dealerships in Kolkata. At 83, he is the oldest living Indane dealer. “There were three.The others are gone. People were scared in the beginning.Bengalis especially were very conservative and did not want to change over to the new fuel. It was a struggle to get people to become customers,“ Sikka told TOI.

Today , his agency caters to 10,000 households and has his son and daughter-in-law as partners who run the show.“Today , it is much more organised. In between there were some problems. Sometimes, there would be delays in delivery and we would have to face their anger. Sometimes, we had to call the police. Today things are much more organised,“ Sikka said adding there hardly any supply issues or apprehensions about LPG.

So what makes a brand tick for 50 years? “There was the time when people were apprehensive that making roti on LPG oven was unhealthy or less tasty. But today things are different. What has made Indane tick for all these years is what value we bring to our consumers. Indane spread the market. Today , whoever is using Indane realises the value creation that we do. Someone who has used Indane for once would not look at anything else. Indane has helped do away the smoky environment of cooking that was prevalent before LPG came into the market. That is why our motto is that no one should go without a cylinder even for a day ,“ IndianOil chairman B Ashok told TOI. “Indane's presence is what differentiates us from our competitors. We are there at every nook and corner of the country . Even the remotest part. You talk about Ladakh, you talk about border areas of Northeast or Andaman, we are there,“ Indrajit Bose, executive director (branding and corporate communications) said.

Bose said Indane was launched in Kolkata because at that time it was the biggest city because perhaps in terms of population and because IndianOil could source the fuel from its refinery in Assam and Barauni in Bihar. Burmah Shell (later became BPCL) and Caltex (now HPCL) had LPG marketing in some cities but that was done with imports.