Credible, Confident And Capable

- Pooja Mujumdar

FOR SANJAY BUDHIA, MAKING sure that there are no mistakes at work and the vision that he cherishes for himself and his team at Patton International Limited is what keeps him invigorated as an entrepreneur. As its managing director, Budhia looks to ‘expand into newer territories and geographies and to keep adding products to the company’s portfolio, in both the engineering and plastic divisions’.

From Tinsukia to Kolkata

Born and bred in Tinsukia, Assam, Budhia studied in a Hindi medium school and was always a topper in class, winning scholarships along the way. While still in school, he developed a flair for writing and began contributing to school periodicals and national magazines such as Mukta and Sarita, published by Delhi Press. Having also topped in Sanskrit in the Class 10 board exams, he set out to translate a school textbook from Sanskrit to Hindi. Dubbing this effort as his first entrepreneurial venture, Budhia remembers how the first print run of his translated work got sold within a week!

Coming to enterprise, the Budhias originally began with an engineering firm called ‘Assam Metals’ in Tinsukia that catered to large clients including Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd and Oil India Limited. In the late 70s, the family moved from Tinsukia to Kolkata, where Sanjay Budhia’s father, H P Budhia, acquired a small, sick electrical components unit in 1979. With that, the father-son duo opened an office under the name ‘Electrometal India Limited’, at Chatterjee International Centre.

Learning the ropes