JAYAKAR JEROME,
56, Commissioner, Bangalore Development Authority
Three years back, when Jayakar Jerome took charge at BDA, the moribund urban development agency was returning profits of Rs 90 lakh. This year, it will return profits of Rs 172 crore. Along the way, the bureaucrat has pruned workforce, rid the authority of corruption, and taken on the state's all-powerful land mafia successfully. Expectedly, bda's effort to raise Rs 100 crore of debt earlier this year was a breeze.

RAJEEV CHAWLA,
40, Additional Secretary, Revenue Department
If Karnataka has, over the past four years, digitised 20 million land records of 6.7 million farmers across 177 taluks (administrative blocks), blame it on Chawla, an engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. With land disputes common across India's predominantly agriculture-led rural economy, the Union Government is now contemplating implementing a similar project across the country.

K. JAIRAJ,
50, Managing Director, KSRTC
India boasts only one profitable state transport corporation, and Jairaj runs it. From losses of Rs 16 crore on revenues of Rs 1,397 crore in 1999, to a profit of Rs 81 crore on sales of Rs 1,942 crore in the first six months of 2002-03, KSRTC has come a long way. The secret: optimal utilisation of a fleet of 13,000 buses, an emphasis on operational effectiveness, and an obsession with margins. That could do any CEO proud.

VIVEK KULKARNI
45, IT and BT secretary, MD of Keonics,
In 2001, when Indian it was going through its worst year (yet), Karnataka successfully lobbied one multinational it company to put down roots in the state every week. Kulkarni, a brand himself in India's it space, was responsible for that. And while the state was already an it powerhouse when Kulkarni became it secretary in 1999, exports have more than trebled from Rs 3,200 crore to Rs 10,000 crore since. Can he do the same with biotech?

-Venkatesha Babu

Q&A
"India Could Be Our Export Base"

David R. Whitwam: Topline matters

In the 15 years that he has been the Chairman and CEO of $10.3-billion Whirlpool Corporation, David R. Whitwam has transformed the American home appliances giant into a global marketer, selling 11 major brands in more than 170 countries. In India recently, the 60-year-old grandfather of eight, who hopes to visit Kashmir some day, spoke to BT's R. Sridharan and Shailesh Dobhal on Whirlpool in India and elsewhere. Excerpts:

Whirlpool's topline seems to be stagnating and profits are also under pressure.

We've been dramatically impacted by currency translation around the world. That takes revenue away. You look at the underlying growth and that has been very solid. And that's the unit sales.

How do you view the threat from new entrants like Haier and Electrolux in the US market?

Electrolux is a competitor we know well, not just in the US but Europe, Latin America, India, and China. Haier has established a very small manufacturing base in the US. There's no competitor that we take for granted in any place in the world. We started this whole globalisation process at Whirlpool in the late 1980s and we said at some point this would become a global industry and we would have a handful of competitors around the world that would be global players. That's not yet happened. If you look today, only Electrolux is really a global player competing in all the major markets around the world.

How important is India in your global strategy?

We are in India because we want to participate in the consumer market in India. It isn't today a huge market. It's a 20 million-unit industry roughly. But if I think about what our people have accomplished in a very short period of time, seven to eight years that we've been here, it's been remarkable. We also think there's an opportunity to continue to build this as a (bigger) export base. But we are looking at leveraging engineering product development, and product design capabilities.

Do you see room in India for some of your other global brands?

It will happen someday, I'm sure of that. It most likely won't be a Whirlpool brand we have in our stable today. It'll be one that'll be created for the Indian marketplace.