Birla's reference is to a sudden explosion of strategic activities in his group, which has pushed into the limelight the shy, quiet inheritor of the 38 companies strong, Rs 12,000-crore Aditya Vikram Birla empire. In the last few months, he has bought out a pulp mill in Canada, taken over Dharani Cements and Digvijay Cements, and now has changed the face of Indian Rayon and Grasim Industries, the two enormous flaghips of the group.

Two years ago, he was being considered as too slow to change, as not having enough ideas on how to tinker with what the great Aditya Birla left behind. Last evening, having justannounced the board approval for a radical group recast, he sat back and told us in response to queries as to what was next: "I can't do everything at 35, then I will have to retire, won't I?" The times, they are indeed a'changing.

Birla, in an exclusive interview to The Financial Express, warned that more was to come. "This group is financially very strong, and after the restructuring, very focussed. We can now profit from the consolidation that is bound to take place in industries where we are in leadership positions."

He said his group is preparing for challenges of the new millenium.

"There are two crucial challenges," he spelt out, "first, customers have become more demanding across the whole range of our business, and second, it has become extremely important to have a strong human resources base."

Birla said this is why he bought out a pulp mill in Canada earlier this year. "We needed to do this because our customers wanted international quality in pulp, and we could not find thatquality of wood in our country, so we had to go there."

Birla threw his weight entirely behind those favouring such freedom of capital flow in the ongoing debate on whether countries should allow such investments to be made with total freedom. "I think the logic of growth demanded that we stop investments in India in spinning, and make them only in Indonesia, or that we buy out that pulp mill in Canada: these are definite pointers that industry needs free flow of capital."

To ensure that the drag on growth due to macroeconomic factors does not slow down profitability enhancement, Birla will focus on value addition. "Its not just fibres any more, we will go for speciality fibre," said Birla, "We will not just look at cement, but are looking at bulk terminals and speciality material."