About · Est. 1947
Industrial gas manufacturing in India since 1947
The Industrial Gases Limited was incorporated in Calcutta in the year of independence. 79 years later the same family directs the Assam business, fills at three works, and still serves on the committees that draft the Indian Standards the industry runs to. What follows is the evidence — from the founder's album and from the public record.
The company photographed at the opening of new plants and the welding school, Kanpur, 5 August 1956.
- 1947
- IncorporatedCorporate registry, 25 July
- 2
- Heads of stateA future President and a future PM
- 7
- Indian StandardsNaming the company on committee
- 1965
- Railways contractUpheld by the Supreme Court
Evidence · the album
Who the founder dealt with
Kanhiya Lal Garg is identified throughout the album by a white Gandhi cap and dark bandhgala. Three plates record him with figures whose offices are a matter of public record — two of whom went on to lead the country.
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Kanpur · 5 August 1956
Lal Bahadur Shastri
Union Minister for Railways and Transport
Prime Minister of India, 1964–66
Photographed leaving the generating hall at the opening of the new plants. Nine years afterwards the company contracted to supply the Diesel Locomotive Works — the same ministry, the same railways.
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Madras · 1962–65
R. Venkataraman
Minister for Industries, Madras State
President of India, 1987–92
He held the industries portfolio from April 1957 to 1967, and became Vice-President in 1984. Garg is on the left; Venkataraman, identified by his heavy dark spectacles against published portraits, on the right.
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Madras · 1962–65
N. S. Patolichev
USSR Minister of Foreign Trade
In post 1958–85
He is turned from the camera, so this identification rests on the album's caption rather than on the likeness, and is recorded here on that basis. The delegation's business was the Mettur power scheme.
Evidence · the public record
Named in the standards, and on the court record
Neither of these is a claim the company makes about itself. Both are printed in documents anyone can obtain.
Indian Standards naming the company
- IS 5903:1970Safety devices for gas cylinders
- IS 3710:1978Filling ratios, low-pressure liquefiable gases
- IS 8775:1978Filling and developed pressure, permanent gases
- IS 8867:1978Saturated vapour pressure and test pressure
- IS 8198 Part X:1980Code of practice for steel cylinders
- IS 8198-12:1982Code of practice for steel cylinders
- IS 15583:2005Compressed helium gas — specification
Devendra Kumar Garg served on the BIS Gas Cylinders Sectional Committee through the 1970s and 1980s, and is named with N. K. Garg in the committee composition of IS 8198:2004, committee ME 16:3.
The Diesel Locomotive Works contract
- Contract dated
- 21 April 1965
- Oxygen, minimum monthly
- 18,000 m³
- Acetylene, minimum monthly
- 2,500 m³
Supplied from a plant operated inside the railway complex at Varanasi. The agreement and its performance are recorded in the judgments of the Calcutta High Court and, in Civil Appeal No. 4249 of 2007, decided 11 April 2017, of the Supreme Court of India. KIGL has kept a works at Varanasi ever since.
Evidence · paper
The works, the trade and the press
The advertisement below establishes something not otherwise recorded on this site: the company was sole agent in India for V/O Machinoexport, Moscow, for power machinery.
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The welding school opens · 5 August 1956
The two cylinders beside the speaker are stencilled “guaranteed to meet all recognised world specifications” — a published quality guarantee, on the product, in 1956.
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Filling dissolved acetylene · 5 August 1956
Cylinders marked ACETYLENE, coupled by hose to the manifold — in principle the same filling operation conducted at Guwahati today.
Also in the album
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Advance, Kanpur · 6 August 1956
“Expansion of Industrial Gas Manufacture” — the day after the opening.
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Amrita Bazar Patrika · 6 August 1956
The same opening covered in one of India's oldest newspapers.
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The invitation · 40 Fazalgunj Factory Area
Opened by S. K. Mukherjee, Speaker of the West Bengal Assembly, under A. G. Kher, Speaker of the U.P. Assembly.
Leadership
Four generations of industrial gas manufacturers
Each person below is named as author or reviewer on the technical pages of this site.
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First generation
Kanhiya Lal Garg
Founder
Founded The Industrial Gases Limited in Calcutta in 1947 and established industrial gas manufacture at scale in India, at a time when almost all of it was imported. He built oxygen and acetylene capacity for the workshops and hospitals of a rebuilding country, and took the company into the engineering trade as sole agent in India for Soviet power machinery.
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Second generation
Devendra Kumar Garg
Managing Director (Engineering)
The principal engineer of the business and a founding member of the All India Gas Association for manufacturers. He designed the company's acetylene plants and made it the first indigenous manufacturer of acetylene gas plant in India. He has worked with PESO, the Bureau of Indian Standards and international bodies on standardising industrial gas production, and is named in the committee composition of IS 8198:2004.
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Third generation
Nikhilessh Garg
Director (Management)
He refined his father's designs, taking KIGL's acetylene plants and flashback arrestors to a standard of reliability and guaranteed performance that carries them into export projects — equipment supplied, commissioned and re-commissioned outside India as well as within it. He directs commercial operations across the three works at Guwahati, Kolkata and Varanasi.
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Fourth generation
Mithillessh Garg
Director (Gas Supply)
He has restarted and rebuilt the Assam works and grown the customer base in India and on export markets. He designed and prototyped the first ultra-high-purity acetylene purification system to run off a carbide-to-water generator, and writes the specification, standards and safety content published on this site — work that rests on a working knowledge of how a generator behaves.
Reference
The dates, in order
- 1947The Industrial Gases Limited is incorporated in Calcutta on 25 July, in the year of independence. Kanhiya Lal Garg is its managing director.
- 1956New plants and a welding school open at Kanpur on 5 August, inaugurated in the presence of the Union Minister for Railways and Transport.
- 1962–65A Soviet trade delegation contracts over the Mettur power scheme. The company is advertised jointly with V/O Machinoexport, Moscow, as sole agent in India for Soviet power machinery.
- 1965A contract of 21 April to supply the Diesel Locomotive Works from a plant inside the railway complex at Varanasi.
- 1970–2005Continuous participation on the Bureau of Indian Standards sectional committees for industrial gas and gas cylinders.
- 1988The company is divided into several businesses. The Kamrup Industrial Gases Limited is formed, with works at Kolkata, Varanasi and Guwahati.
- TodayCylinder filling at Guwahati, equipment built at Kolkata, and a network of agents beyond. Acetylene plants commissioned across India and on export projects.
Questions
KIGL history — frequently asked questions
How old is KIGL, and is it India's oldest industrial gas manufacturer?
The business began in 1947, which makes it seventy-nine years old in 2026, and it is the oldest industrial gas manufacturer in North East India. It is not the oldest in India — Asiatic Oxygen predates it by five years — and we do not make that claim, though the old website did.
Has the family really sat on the Bureau of Indian Standards committees?
Yes, and it is a matter of published record rather than a claim about ourselves. Company representatives appear in the printed committee compositions of Indian Standards from at least 1970 to 2005. Devendra Kumar Garg is named with N. K. Garg in the composition of IS 8198:2004, committee ME 16:3.
What is the Diesel Locomotive Works connection?
An agreement dated 21 April 1965 to supply DLW at Varanasi with a minimum of 18,000 cubic metres of oxygen and 2,500 cubic metres of acetylene every month, from a plant operated inside the railway complex. The contract and its performance are recorded in the Calcutta High Court and in Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 4249 of 2007, decided 11 April 2017.
How are the people in the album identified?
By the album's own captions, by the offices those captions give them, and by comparison with published portraits. Where an identification rests on the caption alone — because the subject is turned from the camera — the page says so. The offices also date the photographs: several plates previously filed as 1956 cannot be, because the offices named did not exist until 1957 or later.
What is the relationship between KIGL, IIGAS and The Industrial Gases Limited?
They are related businesses within the same group, sharing an origin in the 1947 company and a reorganisation in 1988. The exact legal structure is being confirmed before we publish a definitive account, because getting corporate history wrong in print is worse than saying less.
The record continues
Seventy-nine years is not the achievement. The eightieth is.
Every plate on this page is evidence of something the company did. None of it is why a works in Assam should buy gas from us this week. The Guwahati works have been restarted and rebuilt, the plants and flashback arrestors are shipping on export projects, and the fourth generation is writing the specifications published on this site.