New industries can be great for some areas of the world.

They can create jobs and turn a depressed area into a thriving community.

Many places have recognized the positive impacts on a growing industry,

building a manufacturing plant and injecting life into the area.

Of course, the opposite can happen and the closure of a local manufacturer can

turn a once growing community into a slum. Sometimes, though, the factory creates a ghost town overnight. Union Carbide India Limited, or UCIL, started operations in 34 as a subsidiary of the American

company Union Carbide Corporation, or UCC.

UCC is a large U.S. chemical company that was created by the merger of four separate chemical

companies that were founded in the late 1800s.

It was purchased by Dow Chemical in 2001, but prior to that it became one of the first U.S.

companies to invest in India.

The company held a controlling stake of 50.9% in UCIL, while

Indian investors, including the government and government-controlled banks, own the remaining

49.1%. The company's original focus was manufacturing various products like batteries, carbon products, welding equipment, plastics, and marine products.

The 1960s saw India's agricultural section become UCC's prime target as the company looked to tap into the growing pesticide market.

The Indian government welcomed foreign companies to invest in

local industry and that created a perfect opportunity for UCIL to expand into pesticide production.

By 1969, UCIL leased land from the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and started building a new factory in Bhopal.

The plant received approval only to formulate pesticides from imported components in small quantities.

Operations began in 1969 as a formulation plant.

The facility imported chemical carbaryl from UCC's plant and institute West Virginia and processed it into insecticide brands like 7 and Temek.

Competition in the chemical industry sparked a major strategy change, though, and UCIL adopted a business strategy called backward integration.

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