Mysore/Mysuru: Prashant Bhansali, Chief Executive Officer of Kairbetta Estates, a family-run tea plantation and tea manufacturer, has been elected as President of United Planters’ Association of Southern India (UPASI), Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, for the year 2020-21. 

M.P. Cherian, Managing Director of The Cottanad Plantations Limited and The Nilambur Rubber Company Limited with head quarters at Calicut, Kerala, has been elected as UPASI Vice-President. 

Profile: Prashant Bhansali started on the plantation at the age of 21, and has since grown the business which now exports 80 percent of the plantation’s production. 

Past Chairman of the Nilgiri Planters Association as well as the Planters Association of Tamil Nadu, he has been serving on the UPASI Executive Committee for the past 15 years. He was  UPASI Tea Committee Chairman for the period 2016-17 to 2018-19.

 M.P. Cherian hails from a family of planters who have interest in Rubber, Coffee, Cocoa, Tea and Pepper Plantations.  He  is a fourth generation Planter with 30 years experience in managing large plantations

He served as Chairman of Association of Planters of Kerala (APK) in the year 2008 -2009. He has been Executive Committee member of UPASI since 1999 and Executive Committee member of APK from 2000. He was Chairman of the UPASI Rubber Committee during the period 2011-12 to 2019-20, according to a press release from R. Sanjith,      Secretary, UPASI.