Agarbatti maker awarded

The Karnataka Small and Medium Business Owners’ Association (KSMBOA) presented the SME (small and medium enterprises) Excellence Award in Customer Satisfaction to Merzban Lahewala at the Business Excellence and Achievements Awards 2015 event held on July 4, 2015 at Hotel Park Plaza in Bangalore. An email providing this information was sent to Parsiana by Neha Singh, founder secretary of KSMBOA.

Merzban Lahewala (left) receiving award from KSMBOA representative

Lahewala, 53, and his son Sohrab, 27, handle the business of A. K. Agarbatti, a firm started by Merzban’s father Burjorji in 1981 in Ahmedabad. Since the last 40 years they have been manufacturing agarbattis (incense sticks), fluxo incense and dhoop cones at their factory which employs 15 workers, with the local outlet opposite the agiary at Khamasa Gate, Ahmedabad, Lahewala revealed via email, at Parsiana’s request. Their agarbattis are available throughout India. The firm is listed in both the Limca and Guinness Book of World Records for producing the world’s longest agarbatti (see "Fragrant honor,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, June 1999).
"We produce two types of incense sticks — herbal with natural essential oils and herbs powder or raw base incense sticks which are dipped and perfumed as per orders. Our annual production is around 15 to 18 tons, which works out to approximately 1.5 tons a month,” Lahewala shared with Parsiana.