Meet the team: the people who hand-grade your produce
When you place an order with KVM & Co., Mysore, you are working with five specific people at APMC Yard, Bandipalya — each carrying a distinct responsibility in getting your lot selected, verified, settled, and dispatched. This post names each of them, describes what they own, and explains why their particular experience matters to procurement teams who need to know who is on the other end of every transaction.
KVM & Co. has traded from the Bandipalya yard — a regulated yard under the Karnataka State Agricultural Marketing Board — since 1983, and the family lineage in Mysuru agri-trade goes back to 1932. In nine decades, the one thing that has not changed is that the quality of a lot comes down to the people who handle it. Five people work here full-time. Every one of them is involved in every lot that leaves our shed.
R. VijayaShekar — Proprietor
I am the third generation of this family in the agri-trade. My grandfather began in Mysuru in 1932; KVM & Co. was registered in 1983, when I took on the business formally. Over forty years of trading from this yard, the relationships with long-standing buyers have been mine to hold. I know which buyers need a clean, tight grade and which can accommodate a broader screen. I am responsible for the business as a whole.
I still arrive at the yard before sunrise most mornings. The first hour — before trucks, before conversation — is the best time to look at incoming stock without distraction.
Ravi Chandra — Procurement Manager
Ravi has been sourcing alongside us for well over a decade. He leads all relationships with farmers and commission agents across the procurement belt — Chamrajnagar, H D Kote, Kollegal, and further north into the Davangere belt for certain commodities. His primary responsibility is lot selection: which lots we take, at what price, and why.
What sets Ravi apart is crop memory. He knows which farms in Chamrajnagar consistently produce the darker-seeded, higher-density horse gram that buyers in Tamil Nadu prefer, and which farms in the loba belt tend toward the cream-white colour band that goes to the Maharashtra market. He carries that knowledge without a spreadsheet.
Prakash Char — Cashier
Prakash handles all settlements, payments to farmers and commission agents, and daily ledger reconciliation. His ownership is the cash position: he knows at any moment what is outstanding, what is due, and what margin remains on each open transaction. Payment terms with buyers are negotiated through me, but the execution — ensuring the right amount reaches the right party on time — is Prakash's domain entirely.
People who have worked with us for years say Prakash has never once lost track of a payment. That may be a slight exaggeration spoken in fond respect — but the kind that only survives thirty years of clean books.
Manjunath Singh — Accountant and Procurement Manager
Manjunath sits at the intersection of the books and the buying — a combination that is rarer than it sounds. He tracks cost-basis per lot, monitors working capital flow across the trading cycle, and flags when margin is compressing before it becomes a problem. He often spots a shift in our cost structure two or three weeks before the rest of us feel it in the daily numbers. He also brings that same eye to procurement decisions: understanding whether a lot at a given farm-gate price still leaves room to grade, clean, pack, and move at a price our buyers can work with.
N. Gopal — Office Manager and Supplier Relations
Gopal coordinates the day-to-day flow between farmers, commission agents, transporters, and buyers. Scheduling inbound lots, managing dispatch timing, following up with suppliers on lead times — all of that runs through him. He is the reason a 10-tonne consignment booked on a Tuesday is ready for loading Thursday morning without anyone needing to chase.
Every transporter working out of Bandipalya knows Gopal by name. When a truck needs rerouting or a loading slot moves, a call from Gopal resolves in minutes what would otherwise take half a day.
Who to ask about what
If you are reaching us for the first time or returning after a gap, this is the fastest way to route your question:
- Lot availability, crop quality, sourcing region
- Ravi Chandra — Procurement Manager
- Payment terms, settlement timelines, invoice queries
- Prakash Char — Cashier
- Cost-basis questions, lot-level margin, working capital arrangements
- Manjunath Singh — Accountant
- Dispatch scheduling, transport coordination, supplier timelines
- N. Gopal — Office Manager
- Long-term buyer relationships, grade specifications, business terms
- R. VijayaShekar — Proprietor
A small team means every person is accountable for the full lot — not just their part of the paperwork. Ravi's quality call at the farm gate has to match what Prakash settles in the books, which has to match what Gopal dispatches on the truck, which has to match what the buyer receives. There is no department to absorb a mistake. That is, I think, the honest reason buyers come back.
If you are in Mysuru, come and visit the Bandipalya yard — before 9 in the morning if you want to see the day in motion. There is no better way to understand who you are buying from than to watch us work. Reach us at the contact page or on +91 99450 66555.