The origin of Kesar Enterprises (KEL) can be traced back to over a hundred years ago, when Kilachand Devchand strode a confident path to Bombay from a distant village in Gujarat. Since then, he and his succeeding generations have pioneered the formation and rise of the Kilachand Group, one of the large houses for industry and trade in cotton and oilseeds. They have, in tune with the needs of a growing nation, included shipping, aircraft, banking, automobiles, marketing, insurance, thermoplastics, synthetic rubber and textiles in an ever widening sphere of industry.

Established in the year 1933, Kesar Enterprises(KEL) is presently engaged in a wide galaxy of diversified activities. It grew as a member of the Kilachand group in the year 1933 and thereafter, the story has been of one steady growth.

A strong sense of commitment and adherence to business ethics has helped KEL to succeed in bringing to life a larger picture and to ‘Go Beyond’ in all its ventures. 'Go Beyond' would mean KEL's pursuit to adopt environment friendly technologies, conserve nature, curb pollution and serve our customers better. Apart from providing livelihood for scores of people, KEL concentrates its efforts towards accomplishing socio-economic objectives.

Business area of the company includes:

Currently, KEL has evolved into one of the leading industrial houses in Uttar Pradesh, North India. It is engaged in the manufacture, marketing & sale of a wide-range of products, that can be broadly divided into the following two groups :

• Sugar, Bio-Products & Chemicals – Sugar, Alcohol, Alcoholic Beverages, Agri-products.
• Distribution & Storage of Bulk Liquid Cargo at Kandla & port related activities.

Different divisions of the company:

• Sugar Division The large-scale sugar production enables a value addition of its by-products. Keeping this in view, KEL has enhanced its production & invested in value addition. Considering that the infrastructure and technology are already available at KEL, it would enable KEL to move ahead confidently into forward integrated areas.
• Spirits DivisionIn 1949, the company installed a distillery at Baheri to effectively utilize molasses, a by-product generated by the sugar factory. The plant imported from ACME, USA had a capacity of (11000) litres per day. This helped the company to substantially improve its profitability as its by-product was converted to a value added product instead of causing pollution by being wastefully drained.
• Storage Division KEL also prides itself on the modern storage facilities it owns at Kandla port. The storage division, which started off in 1960 with a modest beginning of 2 tanks have now grown to a total of 64 tanks in 2 terminals totaling a storage capacity of 127000 Kilo Litres. There are special tanks for storage of products requiring heating and insulation, stainless steel tanks / coated tanks for products that cannot be stored in conventional mild steel tanks. These facilities are offered to importers and exporters for storage and handling of various bulk liquid cargoes such as chemicals, petroleum products, edible oil, non-edible oils, alcohols, etc. The storage business has given the right thrust and impetus to the KEL's growth and has potential for further development.
• Agrotech Division KEL controls agricultural land at Khurpia village. Earlier they were growing traditional crops such as sugarcane, wheat and paddy. They have also started the cultivation of strawberry, gladiolus, tube roses, marigold & other high value crops and organic farming. Besides the above, KEL has started production, processing and marketing of seeds of various cereal crops.
• Seeds Division KEL produces Open Pollinated and Hybrid Seeds under its brand name viz. Kesar Seeds. Kesar Seeds are known in market for its high quality, which is ensured through stringent quality checks carried out during production, storage, processing and packaging of seeds.

Subsidiary:

Kesar Terminals & Infrastructure Limited-Kesar Terminals & Infrastructure Limited (KTIL) a wholly-owned subsidiary of KEL was formed on January 21, 2008. KEL holds the entire 5,00,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each aggregating to Rs. 50,00,000/- of KTIL.KTIL is yet to start its operations.

Achievements/ recognition:

• The spirits division has dedicated primary, secondary & tertiary rffluent treatment plants to treat the effluent and maintain the desired norms of BOD & COD as required by the UP Pollution Control Board.

Future plan:

KEL is exploring opportunities for putting up additional storage terminals at other ports & also examining putting up other port based facilities such as Container Freight Station, Inland Container Depots at different locations. KEL has been allotted 10 acres of land at Kakinada port in Andhra Pradesh for such purpose.