Bhujia Industry in Bikaner

Today Bikaner is identified for tasty, mouth watering Snacks Bhujia, Papads, Namkeens, which have titillated the plates of many a number of royal Rajput families through the age.
The Bhujia Industry has its origination dated back to 1887AD, when Maharaja Shri Dungar Singhji was manufactured as a special variety and was called ‘DUNAR SHAHI BHUJIA’. This was served to the royal guests with time, manufacturing Bhujia became livelihood of many inhabitants of the district. Since the district was drought prone district with only salty well water available for drinking, there was little scope in farming and agriculture. And thus Bhujia production gained momentum and a big Bhujia prepared in this area has special ingredient of moth (lentil) grown in this area and the different special taste can be attributed to salty well water available only in Rajasthan.
At present there are about 425 units producing bhujia in Bikaner district and nearby areas of Sri Dungargarh, Churu, Nagpur and Sri Ganganagar. Out of these only a few have proper plant and well planned production system, the rest are small and cottage type industries.
The raw materials required for industry are lentils, edible oil and condiments. While lentil is grown in Western Rajasthan i.e. in districts of Barmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Churu, Nagaur and Jodhpur. The edible oil (Groundnut) is procured from Bikaner or from neighbouring state of Gujrat. The condiments are purchased from South India, directly or through dealers in Delhi. The raw material is thus abundant and easily available to Industry.
The major ‘Bhujia’ consuming mkt. In Rajasthan followed by Punjab and Haryana. Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam too are not far behind. Rajasthan consumes about 30% of the total produce annually and rest of the 70% is consumed by other states and with time the awareness and interest in ‘Bikaneri Bhujia’ has grown and spread all over the country and around the world too.
Recently export of Bhujia and namkeen from Bikaner has also gained momentum; The export of Bhujia has potential to grow much more, it only requires awareness on the part of manufacturer about the export prospects of the item, export producers, documentation and packaging.
The whole Bhujia industry is divided into two sectors.
(a) Unorganised (b) Organised
The unorganized sector consists of over 70% of the total Bhujia industry. These units are flourishing in the district because of high demand of the product and easy availability of raw material and also low setting up costs. The unorganized sector also includes small business and small-owners selling the snacks and sweets. Almost every second household in the city has women and girls making Papads. The major portion of this sector is inside the ‘walled city’ of Bikaner and Gangasahar area. An estimated number of 850 burners are used in this unorganized sector and around 80 to 100 kgs. of Bhujia per day which amounts to an annual production of 25,000 to 30,000 tons. This sector though unorganized and traditional, still poses a threat to the modern organized sector, as a large segment of Bikaner’s population is still price conscious and the price of the product ~unbranded Bhujia or ‘Khulli Bhujia’ in local jargon is around 30% less than the branded and packaged Bhujia.
The organized sector is the rest 30% of the Bhujia industry. The major players are Bikaji, Bhikharam Chandmal, Haldiram, Choudhary food products, Swad industries Pvt. Ltd., ‘Yes’ and Mr. Namkeen and many more.
‘Bikaji’ in Bikaner is major company in the branded Bhujia market. Another emerging name in this sector is of Bhikharam Chandmal’s sunsine food products. Bhikharam Chandmal has opted up a big showroom in Bikaner and has started distributing the products in some other states too. The companies of this sector have to face a tough competition given by multinationals like Lehar Namkeens and from Uncle Chips. The companies of Bikaner Bhujia Industry mainly use print media for advertising only Bikaji has used the broadcasting media for advertising. These companies themselves face enough competition from each other and soon will have to start employing other marketing strategies if they want to survive in this competitive market of Bhujia.
The present distribution channel of this product is mainly direct selling and employing sales force like sales representative and sales officers who extensively travel to book order for this respective companies besides this 3 units have appointed dealers throughout the country to market their products. The units adopting direct selling can think of marketing the item through dealership, which will help in enhancing the sales.
This industry is reported to be facing a lot of problems in regard to finance, electricity, taxation structure and entry of multi-nationals in the field.