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The Legendary Calendar 'Kalnirnay' - K.Bit - Business and Marketing

There is a publication house which sold one of its original’s 1.8 Million copies in nine languages in 2017. It is world’s largest publication. It is name of 1.4 Million household across almost all Indian states. The name of publication is the legendary calendar – Kalnirnay.

Kalnirnay Calendar

The legendary publication was made by a small Mumbai – based publication house – Sumangal Publication Company. The Kalnirnay was started by the country-wide infamous astrologer – Jayantrao Salgaonkar. He was the first to recognize an unfulfilled need of Indians. When in 1973, when Sumangal Publication Company first started working on the Kalnirnay, they decided to incorporate in their calendar that no other calendar had, an easily comprehensible Panchang – a Sanskrit text that lists down the details of celestial movements and provides information about auspicious timings and the opposite as well. In India, people take Panchang very seriously, they often plan their weddings, special events and even surgery according to astrologer told auspicious occasions.

The Panchang was difficult to understand, people often went to astrologer who charged a fee. Mr. Jayantrao Salgaonkar converted the Sanskrit text into easily understandable common-man language. He converted the jhatkas and pallas (units of time in Hindu time measurement system) into hours, days and minutes as well as implemented it into Gregorian Calendar. Along with this he mentioned various well-wishing days such as Poornima, Ekadashi, etc. Majorly all the religious and other celebrations of all the religions including Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, etc. were also mentioned in the calendar.

A Fact Check – ‘Kalnirnay’ means timely decision in the Language Marathi. First edition priced at Rs. 1.25 was out of stock soon enough as consumers loved it. 1973 when Kalnirnay went into print for the first time, only 10000 copies were made.

The calendar was seen as more a gifting item than a self-use item. In such a situation he pursued his idea and was neglected loan from bank for his project. Ever since then there has been no coming back for the Sumangal Publication Company for Calmanac/Kalnirnay. Along with precious dates and timing information, Kalnirnay also provides various household tips, health tips, cooking tips and many more. There is hard to get so much in so little.

The reach of Kalnirnay is the reason why top brands like ITC, P&G, Hindustan Unilever, etc use top and bottom spaces on Kalnirnay as their advertisement slides. Today many competitors try to copy the Kalnirnay’s design but most of them have been failed while Kalnirnay reigning on top.

Kalnirnay is the example how learning and understanding consumer needs and preferences along with developing means to fulfil those needs can do wonders. As the time moves towards technology, Kalnirnay has also diversified into many other forms of calendars and publications along with a Kalnirnay app for both Android and Apple. What started with just 10000 copies is now a Rs. 100 crore industry dominated clearly by Kalnirnay.

A Kalnirnay Quote: -

“If there is a wall, there needs to be a Kalnirnay on that wall."

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