MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 28 of 100

Correct — option (4), The Kirloskar. Kirloskar Brothers was founded in 1888 by Laxmanrao Kirloskar with his partner Ramuanna, and the firm's first successful products were farm implements: fodder-cutters, and then the iron plough, which is the item the company is remembered for. It is credited with manufacturing India's first modern iron plough, and the plough famously went unsold for close to two years before farmers who had used only wooden implements were persuaded to take it up. In 1910 the brothers moved the works to a barren tract of about 32 acres in the princely state of Aundh, in what is now Sangli district of Maharashtra, a site with no road, power line or drainage; the factory-village they built there is Kirloskarvadi, and it is one of the earliest industrial townships in western India. The group grew from implements into pumps, valves, diesel engines, compressors, machine tools and electrical equipment, and Kirloskar Brothers is today India's largest maker of pumps and valves, supplying irrigation, water supply, power and oil and gas projects. Of the four names printed, it is the only one whose business began in agricultural equipment and the only one still associated with it, and that is what makes it the answer. Note the stem as printed — 'Which of the following industry produces agricultural tools on large scale ?' — where the singular 'industry' and the missing article before 'large scale' are the paper's own, and the English options each carry a leading 'The' that the Marathi ones do not.

• (1)The Ranbaxy — Ranbaxy was a pharmaceutical company, not an engineering one. It was incorporated in India in 1961 and took its name from its founders Ranbir Singh and Gurbax Singh, was headquartered at Gurgaon in Haryana, and grew into one of India's largest makers of generic medicines. Daiichi Sankyo of Japan bought a controlling stake in 2008, and Sun Pharma acquired the whole of Ranbaxy in an all-stock deal in 2014, after which it ceased to exist as an independent company. Nothing in that history touches agricultural implements. The option is in the list because a candidate who recognises only that Ranbaxy is a large and familiar Indian manufacturer, without recalling what it manufactured, may pick it on name recognition alone.
• (2)The Pioneer — Pioneer is not an Indian maker of farm implements. The name that comes closest to agriculture is Pioneer Hi-Bred International, founded in 1926 at Des Moines, Iowa by the farm journal editor Henry A. Wallace, which breeds and sells hybrid seed — maize, soybean, sorghum, sunflower, canola, rice, wheat and alfalfa — and which passed to DuPont in 1999 and is now part of Corteva. Seed and implements are different industries, and a seed company makes nothing that could be called an agricultural tool. The name is also carried by a Japanese consumer-electronics firm and by an Indian newspaper, so it is a word that feels familiar without attaching to any implement manufacturer, which is exactly the quality a distractor needs.
• (3)The Bajaj — Bajaj is an automobile group, not an implement maker. Bajaj Auto was established on 29 November 1945, is headquartered at Pune in Maharashtra and makes motorcycles, scooters and auto rickshaws, along with low-cost cars and electric scooters; it began by importing and selling two- and three-wheelers and obtained manufacturing licences in 1959. The wider Bajaj Group was founded by Jamnalal Bajaj, the industrialist and follower of Gandhi. This is the most tempting of the three wrong options for a Maharashtra candidate, because Bajaj and Kirloskar are both Pune-region engineering houses of comparable age and fame; the distinction is what each of them actually built, and Bajaj built vehicles from the start.

The Kirloskar story is the standard Indian example of an indigenous engineering enterprise that began in agriculture and grew into heavy industry. Laxmanrao Kirloskar founded the firm in 1888 with his partner Ramuanna, starting with fodder-cutters and then the iron plough — a product that had to create its own market, since Indian farmers of the time used wooden ploughs and were reluctant to trust an iron one. In 1910 the works moved to a bare 32-acre site in the princely state of Aundh, and the township built around it, Kirloskarvadi in present-day Sangli district, became one of the earliest company towns in the country, with housing, schooling and services provided by the firm. From implements the group diversified into pumps, diesel engines, air compressors, chillers, machine tools and electrical equipment, and Kirloskar Brothers is now India's largest maker of pumps and valves, with products from a fraction of a kilowatt to tens of megawatts. Its industrial significance for Maharashtra is that it anchored engineering in the Pune-Satara-Sangli belt decades before the post-independence industrial estates, and it remains the reference point in any question about agricultural equipment manufacture in India.

MPSC sets short single-line items of this kind on Maharashtra's industries and industrial houses, and the reasoning they require is not recall of an obscure fact but the ability to say what a familiar company actually makes. All four names here are well known to any newspaper reader; only one of them has anything to do with agriculture. That is the ordinary construction of such a question — take four names of comparable fame and let the candidate's sense of familiarity work against them. The defence is to attach a product to every industrial name you learn, because the Commission tests the product and not the name. It is also worth reading the stem exactly as printed. This one asks which industry produces agricultural tools 'on large scale', which is a question about the principal business of the firm and not about whether it has ever made anything for a farm; a diversified group may make many things, and the question is asking what it is known for.

• Kirloskar Brothers was founded in 1888 by Laxmanrao Kirloskar with his partner Ramuanna; its first successful products were fodder-cutters and then iron ploughs, and it is credited with India's first modern iron plough.
• In 1910 the firm moved to a barren 32-acre site in the princely state of Aundh, and the factory-township built there became Kirloskarvadi, in present-day Sangli district of Maharashtra.
• Kirloskar Brothers today makes industrial, petrochemical, agricultural and domestic pumps, valves and hydro turbines, and is India's largest maker of pumps and valves.
• Ranbaxy Laboratories was a pharmaceutical company incorporated in 1961 and named after its founders Ranbir Singh and Gurbax Singh; Daiichi Sankyo took a controlling stake in 2008 and Sun Pharma acquired it entirely in 2014.
• Bajaj Auto, established on 29 November 1945 and based at Pune, makes motorcycles, scooters and auto rickshaws; the Bajaj Group was founded by the industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj.

• Choosing an industrial name because it is famous rather than because of what it makes; all four options here are household names and only one has any connection with farm equipment
• Confusing Kirloskar with Bajaj because both are old engineering houses of the Pune region; Kirloskar began with ploughs and pumps, Bajaj with two- and three-wheelers
• Assuming a diversified group's occasional product answers a question about what it produces on a large scale; the question asks about the firm's principal line
• Treating a seed company such as Pioneer Hi-Bred as an implement maker, when seed and machinery are entirely separate industries

Industry questions in MPSC papers usually take one of three forms: which firm makes a named product, where a named industry is concentrated, or which factor explains the location of a plant. The firm-and-product form, as here, is the commonest and is answered from a short list — the dozen industrial houses associated with Maharashtra, each with its principal product and its home town. The location form needs the industrial regions of the state and the raw material, power, transport and market factors behind each. The third form draws on industrial policy. Preparing a single table of Maharashtra's major industries with their firms, centres and location factors covers all three, and it is worth adding the year and founder for the older houses, since those details are sometimes asked directly.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Kirloskarvadi, one of the earliest industrial townships in western India, was established by the Kirloskar firm in which present-day district of Maharashtra?

  • (a)Satara
  • (b)Sangli
  • (c)Kolhapur
  • (d)Solapur

  Answer(b) Sangli — in 1910 Laxmanrao Kirloskar moved the works to a barren 32-acre site in the princely state of Aundh, which lies in present-day Sangli district, and the factory-village built around it took the name Kirloskarvadi. The firm itself was founded in 1888 and made its name with fodder-cutters and India's first modern iron plough before moving into pumps, engines and valves.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following pairs of company and its principal product is correctly matched?

  • (a)Ranbaxy — agricultural implements
  • (b)Bajaj Auto — pharmaceuticals
  • (c)Kirloskar Brothers — pumps and valves
  • (d)Pioneer Hi-Bred — motorcycles

  Answer(c) Kirloskar Brothers — pumps and valves. The firm began in 1888 with fodder-cutters and iron ploughs and is today India's largest maker of pumps and valves. Ranbaxy was a pharmaceutical company incorporated in 1961 and absorbed into Sun Pharma in 2014; Bajaj Auto, founded in 1945 at Pune, makes motorcycles, scooters and auto rickshaws; and Pioneer Hi-Bred, founded in Iowa in 1926, breeds and sells hybrid seed.