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The Rise of Kedia Organisation

Kedia Organisation was established in 1909 as an evolution of the family owned trading business. The Kedia family started its business as a cloth merchant with stores in Birgunj and Kathmandu that selling imports from India. With the initiation and leadership of Brij Lal Kedia, first generation businessperson of the family, the business gradually expanded into food grains trading. It started small but as time progressed, it expanded across Nepal. Manoj Kedia, Executive Director of Kedia Organisation, narrates, “He used to collect food grains from every corner of the country and supply them to even remote areas that lacked transportation facilities. For the first time in Nepal, he fixed prices of food grains and at a certain point, even the Khadya Sansthan (government owned Nepal Food Corporation) fixed food grain prices by consulting him. Later he established rice mills, dal mills and many more food grain factories. He established Nepal’s first modern rice mill, Bhagwati Rice Mill.”

 

Shankar Lal Kedia expanded foothold in the manufacturing sector. He established factories related to steel furniture, stainless steel utensils, textile, umbrella, socks, wheat flour, corrugated steel, copper utensil etc. Kedia says that during that time, the steel, textile, and corrugated sheet industries from Kedias were pioneers in their respective fields. They then became the backbones of the present day Kedia Organisation. At the same time, the group also entered in general merchandising sector by importing goods from third countries and bulk-traded them in local market. Imported goods included clothes, electronics, food items, medical equipment, household products, hardware, cement, sugar, and edible oil among others. Meanwhile the company also exported rice to Tibet and pulses and lentils to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and to some European countries. 

 

Similarly, the group established Caltex Company, a petrol pump agent in Nepal, and this is still in operation as Kedia Auto in Birgunj. Kedia claims that Kedia Group also is one of the first industrial houses to advertise its products. “We sponsored the “Sundar Sushil Sangeet”, a popular song-on-request programme aired on Radio Nepal, to promote our products,” he says.

 

Today the group has over 1000 administrative staff, more than 100 technical staff and over 2500 skilled and semi-skilled workers. Today the group has investments in around four dozen companies, doing business in wide range of sectors.