The year 1984 is of great significance for the Somany Group that came into being with my venture for quarrying Kund Multicolor Slate in Haryana State. To know more about me, Ashok Somany, it is appropriate for me to briefly explain the background of Slate Business in Kund and my participation in this business.

The Kund Multicolor Slate that you all know of today was first quarried over a 100 years back by the British through their holding company for quarrying slate in India. The entire province before the partition of the Indian Subcontinent was Punjab State and that included what is today Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. In 1867 the British started quarrying slate at the Kangra Valley in Dharamsala (now in Himachal Pradesh). In Britain slate was popularly used for roofing and to some extent as a surface for the billiard tables. The British were exploiting the slate resources in India and they notified certain areas in Kund Village for open cast mining and extraction.

The Kund Multicolor Slate is quarried in the foothills of the Aravali Mountain ranges, an ecologically sensitive region that extends from Haryana to Rajasthan State. The Kund Multicolor Slate quarries was a very well organised quarrying operation quarrying muticolor slate as well as jet black slate. The material (geologically known as Phylite)  was also available in adjacent Mandhan, Khundroth, Basai, Bajjar and Giglana areas of Rajasthan State. the Rajasthan State government was auctioning some of these areas demarcated as non forest areas to local villagers for terms ranging from 3 to 5 years. Many quarries mushroomed in Rajasthan State and traders from Kund Village started processing and trading in this product which also sold as Kund Multicolor Slate.

My family was also trading in Multicolor Slate quarried in Rajasthan. My father started prospecting and purchasing land in Haryana State for quarrying Kund Multicolor Slate. He successfully obtained a mining lease from the Government for extraction rights on 200 hectares of land adjacent to the existing Kund Multicolor Slate.

In the late 1960s, th Haryana State Government took over and nationalised the well organised Kund Multicolor Slate quarries and nationalised the slate business in the state. Even our family quarrying operations were stopped and we had to approach the courts with our dispute. At this point of time the Government of Haryana and other traders in Rajasthan were the only ones processing and selling the Multicolor Slate Popularly known as Kund Multicolor Slate. I too was an investor with some of the larger players in this business operating from Rajasthan State and we were supplying the materials to other exporters mainly in Delhi and Mumbai.

In 1984, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favour of my family and allowed us to operate our quarries that are located adjacent to the quarries that were run by the Government of Haryana. Thus, our venture was the first of its kind in the private sector after nationalisation of quarrying operations in Haryana. Thereafter I have been managing the quarries and setting up processing units to cater to the international market as well as the domestic exporters.

In the year 2003 I was the successful bidder for the Government of Haryana Quarries after they decided to auction their areas.

Due to environmental reasons, barring a few small quarries in Mandhan, the Government of Rajasthan have terminated all the leases for Multicolor Slate quarries in Rajasthan. Therefore, today I am operating majority of the areas for Kund Multicolor Slate. Taking account the then available infrastructure facilities in India during 1984, it was a rough ride to bring these quarries and the business to what it is today. With India keeping up pace with infrastructure development, we have developed the Kund Multicolor Slate as a quality product conforming to international standards and I will continue to ensure that quarrying operations are done in a systematic manner with proper top soil management and employing environment friendly technology.

As a social initiative, I participate in programs for setting up primary schools at grass root levels in villages. It is my aim to encourage parents to send their children to school rather than encouraging child labour or self employment. This is possible only if the parents have access to educational facilities for their children, for which it is important to take education to them.