Besides offices in Delhi and Mumbai, SHV North-West India has its headquarters in Ahmedabad; for the South, the headquarters is Hyderabad. Hyderabad works out to be a more accessible and economically viable option than arch rival Bangalore.

Considered the world leader in LPG distribution today, with over 30 million customers in 35 countries, SHV prides itself on its people-oriented sense of enterprise.

It aims at creating direct and indirect employment opportunities. According to SHV India head Ken Wilson, after a period of two years by which time his tenure here in India will be over, the company hopes to have the entire operation in capable local hands.``For us, people are a major asset,'' says Wilson.

``Senior managers from all ourbranches are routinely sent to Utrecht to interact with and attend courses conducted by outside consultants,'' he explains.

In fact, a team of 5-6 people recently attended one of these courses, among them the director for HRD at SHV. There are two more groups slated to go on a similar exercise later on in the year, selected from all the SHV offices within India. Further, there is scope for overseas transfers within the company depending on an individual's capability and his field of expertise.

Gopalakrishna, head, P&A, is convinced about SHV's humane policies toward its employees. ``As it is, LPG is a competitive market, so we have wafer thin margins. While our salaries are not exactly top of the line, we have a handsome compensation, and depending on an individual's professional capabilities, we are even willing to pay between 25 and 35 per cent more than other companies.''

He adds: ``We also offer the GPA policy and Mediclaim for employees and their dependents such as parents, spouse and children. Atthe international level, we have incentives such as annual holidays, but we will be introducing that in phases here, as we are still at the inception stage.''Taking into consideration the Central government's decision of raising the retirement age, does SHV have similar intentions? ``No, our retirement age remains 58,'' says Gopalakrishna.

And what is the overall employment focus? ``Besides full-fledged engineers, we recruit graduate trainees as well, and provide them with a year's training at the company's expense,'' says Gopalakrishna. The emphasis is on training and development, with lots of plans. But it's still too early to talk about all of them, he adds.