What is common to Pheneol, Cantharidine Hair Oil, Kalmegh and Aqua Ptychotis? They are all products once made by Bengal Chemicals. Or would you say they’re brands owned by Bengal Chemicals? Brands, did you say?
Yeah, they’re brands, but unbranded brands. The what? Well, the point is Bengal Chemicals never branded them the way branding is done these days. Yet they became so popular that even today their ‘brand recall’ is quite impressive. Mind you, in old days, since there was no concept of brand promotion, products became popular based solely on the strength of their usefulness.
Simply put, all the 4 products were of excellent value, which was why they were household names even without much advertisement. And why not? After all, Bengal Chemicals (rather, Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd, BCPL for short) was founded by none other than the luminary Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, a University of Edinburgh graduate, one of the 2 first Gilchrist scholars from India and an honorary D.Sc. from University of Durham.
Illustrious he was, but leading simple life, that was Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray. It won’t be wrong to say that BCPL, founded way back in 1892, and riding the genius of Acharya Ray and Rajsekhar Basu aka Parshuram, the famous Bengali writer, masters in Chemistry, the first manager of BCPL, paved the way for blossoming of Indian pharmaceutical industry.
BCPL turned sick in 1993, but now a revival package is on the way. Worth Rs.440 crore, the lifeline being extended to BCPL is a testimony of the legendary role it played once upon a time, and an urgent recognition that it cannot be allowed to die.
So, will Bengal Chemicals still make the old brands it owns? Perhaps, but it will now embark into making new categories of drugs to combat and treat such life-threatening ailments like HIV and kala-azar. It also plans to make anti-rabies vaccine in association with state-owned Pasteur Institute of India.
Let us wish Bengal Chemicals all the best as a tribute to its founding father, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray.
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