GIPE-PUNE-OIIOI2 - DSpace@GIPE

RATIONALIZATION IN INDIAN BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 243.
on the margin of existence as well as to those that are
yet only in projects. It is because of the want of rationalization
that certain enterprises are passin~ through a
crisis. And again, unless rationalization be attempted
at the very threshold, as for instance is the case with
the T ata Iron and Steel Co, and the Mysore Iron Works,
certain other industries could hardly be called into being.
The Burmah Oil Company may in this connection
be cited as another instance of an enterprise in India •.
although however not Indian in finance. and organization •.
that satisfies the rationalization tests in a remarkable
manner. It is, in the first place, from the standpoint of
financial organization, a trust-like complex. For, like
the Tata Iron and Steel Company, the B. O. C. commands
not only the raw materials, namely, the crude
oil of the oil-fields, but the finished products, the
kerosene and benzene, etc., of the refineries as well.
The next stages in the creation of values are likewise in
the hands of the Company itself. The B. O. C.
possesses its own. "oil marine," so to say, to transport its
goods to the d~ired markets. And finally, the marketing
also is taken care of by its agents. The B. O. C. oil
tanks are prominent installations in Indian cities. The
sale is in the hands of the Burmah Shell Oil Storage and
Dif;tributing Company of India, which is the sales agency
for the greater portion of kerosene marketed in India.
The B. O. C., be it no~ed further, is an associate o~
the. Asiatic Petroleum .Co. (representing the Royal
Dutch Shell Group) on 'the . Kerosene . Pool.. con-:
stituting thus a link in the big British trust in competitio~.
with "Socony." the Standard Oil Company of New
York. In: its price-war with this American trust, in