History Maker: Nitin Godse - Founder of Excel Gases
It had been quite a journey for Nitin Godse from rags to riches. He spent his childhood digging wells for Rs 40 a day in an off the map village to establishing Excel Gas, a gas pipeline and equipment company, with a current annual turnover of Rs 50 crore. Reportedly Excel has set up gas pipelines for clients across India
Meanwhile hailing from Ahmednagar district's Washere village, about 157 km from Mumbai, Nitin was born into a family of modest means with three siblings, and his father was a salesman in a cooperative store earning Rs 400 a month.
Apparently
after graduation, he tried his hand in poultry business for which he took a bank loan, but the venture ended in losses. Reportedly he then worked as shift
supervisor at Orkay Silk Mills in Navi Mumbai for five months, followed by a six month
stint at Technova Imaging System, also in Navi Mumbai, in production.Moreover
Nitin worked as manager
with Span Gas on a salary of Rs 10,000 for around two years and a Vashi based company, Span Gas dealt with distribution
of LPG (bottled gas) equipment, gas valves and
cylinder regulators basically everything to do with the domestic gas consumer industry. Accordingly on 30 December 1999, he founded Excel Engineering with zero savings. Nitin said
“He borrowed Rs 10,000 from his father, bought a telephone for Rs 2,200, VAT certification for Rs 5,000 and went to a cyber cafe to make invoices and got Rs 1,200 profit from that deal”.