Competition Getting Keener

Competition Getting Keener Hansavivek TATA OIL MILLS COMPANY'S Chairman, D S Seth, has announced his intention to step down, after the annual genera! meeting on August 29, as the Chairman and Director of the company "to be able to cope with numerous tasks and situations and to reduce some of my increasing burdens and responsibilities". It was in early 1973, recollects Seth, when J R D "Tata was still the Chairman that he was called upon to get more actively involved in the affairs of Tomco and, as Vice-Chairman, take over the leadership of the company. This was at a time when crippling losses, which threatened the very survival of Tomco, were seriously apprehended and the company's joint venture project in Malaysia, Unitata, was on the verge of being aborted. Later, in June 1982, when Tata insisted on stepping down as the Chairman, the board did Seth the honour of appointing him as the Chairman of the company in succession to Tata. Looking back, Seth derives some personal satisfac tion as not only the adverse trends were quickly arrested but the company registered record post-tax profits in four years and Unitata emerged as perhaps the country's most successful joint venture abroad. But for the strike in 1979 the company's progress would have been even more satisfying.