Two Winners And A Photo Finish
According to the INDIA TODAY-ORG-MARG opinion poll, there will be clear winners in two states, but a tight finish in a third.

The Last Rampage
To offset
J. Jayalalitha's slight edge, a pugnacious M. Karunanidhi gives it his all in what is his final electoral campaign.

The Sixth Sense
A mercurial Mamata Banerjee vs a dependable Buddhadev Bhattacharya. The mismatch leaves the Left Front with a premonition of victory.

Secular Stake
Even as the Church makes a blatant move to play a more political role in the state, the CPI(M) nominates a priest to woo minorities.

One Man Barmy
India's apex social sciences facilitating body is rocked by civil war: the chairman says he is being opposed by both RSS ideologues and leftist academics.

Changing Order
An ageing profile and a frustrated officer corps leads the force to consider VRS and restructuring.

Liquid Asset
The Rs 700-crore industry has attracted many players. Now, purity will decide who stays in business.

Board Of No Control
Tax authorities say the BCCI spends more money on meetings than on matches.

BUSINESS: BOTTLED WATER

Liquid Asset

The Rs 700-crore water business, growing at 70 per cent every year, is attracting a flood of players. They now have to play pure or go bust.

By Methil Renuka

Suddenly everybody wants to sell purity. There's good money to be made; the market is around Rs 700 crore and growing at 70 per cent every year. Last year alone 150 players jumped in the fray for a slice of the pie. The branded bottled water segment is, well, wet and sexy now.

Which is a change from 1993 when a Mr Ramesh Chauhan sold off Parle's soft-drink brands (including Thums Up) to the Coca-Cola Company and decided to focus on the mineral water business. "People laughed at us in the beginning," says Chauhan. The product, they said, was too niche. Who in India, apart from filmstars and fivestar hotels and foreigners with weak stomachs, would spend money on bottled water of all things?

Everybody did. Bisleri, Chauhan's product in pet (polyethylene terepthalate) bottle, is now a Rs 400-crore company with, he says, "a 60 per cent share" in the branded market. He predicts his company will hit the Rs 1,000 crore mark in another two years. He also prophecies, "The bottled water market will outstrip the carbonated drinks market in three years. Today, the Railways itself has 1,250 brands of water." According to an ORG-MARG report (January-December 2000), mineral water is 14 per cent of the turnover (Rs 6,000 crore) of the bottled soft-drink industry, with per capita consumption of mineral water in India at 0.5 litre every year.

Given the figures, no one is likely to laugh at the seemingly incongruous vision of water over soft-drinks now. Every MNC from Pepsi (Aquafina) to Coca-Cola (Kinley) to Nestle (PureLife) has already tried to make a splash in the past year. The USP of all players boils down to purity and safety, with each vying for the same consumer trust. This has forced the action to shift to things like compactable (crushable) packaging, proprietary design, tamper-proof seals and sophisticated water treatment. Jargon rules: while someone does it by ozonisation, others plumb for demineralisation and reverse osmosis to eliminate pathogens, impurities and reduce the total dissolved solids in water.

First-mover and market leader Parle Bisleri is beginning to feel the heat of competition. It has made a concerted move from railway platforms, retailers and floating tourists to a 50-crore target market in the home segment, and is trying to "consolidate" its position with trendier ad campaigns to give water a new "young" face. In keeping with that image make-over, its catch-phrase from "Pure and Safe" has been changed to "Play Safe", wherever you are. Even if you're in the sack.

It's an approach that finds favour with others. Says Suveen Sahib, area manager, south Asia, of French major Danone which markets the Evian mineral water (Rs 98 per litre) as "an alternate beverage for lifestyle and fitness needs" in India: "People have started associating bottled water with good health. Today, we have 500 families in Mumbai spending anything from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000 a month on our water brand."

But selling bottled water was not easy to start with. "It took a lot of unlearning to get a soft drink mind to think in the water perspective," recalls Chauhan. It also required some sound convincing skills-and almost six months-to get his men to believe that a growth of 200 per cent was indeed possible. The potential existed, of course, given the legendary poor quality of tap water and the public fear about the safety of civic water. Now, Bisleri sells nine packs from 300 ml to 20 litre, and has entered the home segment by introducing a first-of-its-kind home delivery system for its 20 litre jumbo jars through its fleet of 2,000 trucks. With visibility in over 1.2 lakh retail outlets across the country, Chauhan hit on the home segment because "retail shops are getting crowded and there's good money in the home business".

MetroScape

Bond Free
The Savoy in Mussoorie must be the only hotel, apart from the Raffles in Singapore, to have a thing about writers. So, it was quite kismet when publisher Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books and author Namita Gokhale, who has an imprint with him, hosted the Ruskin Bond Festschrift—a Writers' Retreat in honour of that gentle Indian Roald Dahl, Ruskin Bond.
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