REM Group MD & chairman, Temjen Imna Along Longkumer at his office in Lohgtho, Mokokchung. He was recently conferred the International Award in Leadership Excellence in Social Entrepreneurship at the 7th edition of Middle East Business Leadership Awards (2016) at London. (Morung Photo)
REM Group chief shares about his company, society and his philosophy in life
Morung Express Feature
Mokokchung | March 1
REM Group, a business conglomeration headquarter at Longtho (Mokokchung) is one of the fastest growing business companies in Nagaland. Founded during the years 2008-09, REM Group was established by a small group of Youngman led by Temjen Imna Along Longkumer as a ‘small business house’ with one ‘desk and one chair’. Today, it has grown and bifurcated into different branches like “REM Enterprise (based in Dimapur), REM Constructions & Infrastructure PVT Ltd, REM Hardware Electricals, and REM Coal Mining & Mineral Traders”.
It started off with ‘three persons’, today it employs more than a hundred youths, mostly locals, working in its different branches business. REM Group is also a corporation that is changing lives in the Japukong, Tsurangkong and Jangpetkong ranges of Mokokchung district through its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) schemes by building toilets, wells, retaining walls etc in the different villages as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission. It is an initiative which was highly impressed the state Governor, PB Acharya who awarded a Certificate of Commendation to REM Group MD & Chairman, Temjen Imna Along Longkumer on 17th February, 2016. Just recently, on February 17, 2017, the Chairman & MD of REM Group was conferred the International Award in Leadership Excellence in Social Entrepreneurship at the 7th edition of Middle East Business Leadership Awards (2016) at London, an award initiated by American Leadership Development Association (ALDA).
At thirty eight years of age, Temjen Imna Along Longkumer, the MD & Chairman of REM Group, is a non-assuming, soft-spoken and a philosophical person whose one interest in life is to serve the people with a sense of social responsibility.
The Morung Express caught up with the REM Group chief at his office in Longtho (some seventy kilometers away from Mokokchung town), where he shared about his company, and his thoughts in a exclusive interview.
About REM Group
‘REM Group is a collective company’, says Along Longkumer, ‘it is a company owned by all the members, all the people. Starting from the handymen, drivers, the supervisors and everybody…in the right words, actually it’s a people’s company’.
He disclosed that the name ‘REM’ has been specifically chosen in honor of his paternal grandmother, ‘Remtsüngmerila’, who was a staff nurse working with the ‘downtrodden Adivasi people’ in the tea garden in Assam.
“When I was in Mumbai (as MD of Nop Global Info Solutions) and rest of the country, some of my friends and elders used to tell me that if I start some good enterprises in the name of my ancestors, then God will be really happy and bless you…when I look back in my life, I knew the love of my grandmother from my very childhood days, and her services to the downtrodden people, the Adivasis in Assam, I thought Lord, I think I need to take her name. So taking her complete name Remtsungmerila would be an impossible task, so the name Rem started. That’s how REM Group came into being.”
Along Longkumer disclosed that REM Group started off as a business house, but living in Longtho, he wanted to do something for the area. Gradually, while visiting the villages and meeting people, slowly people began to join in. However, it was not easy in the beginning; people were quite sarcastic and doubted what these ‘young people were doing or how long it will last’. But, eight years down the line, the Company has grown into a full-fledged and respectable company with business unit trading in Singapore, Delhi, Mumbai and Dimapur.
“We are the first business generation businessmen or corporate company businessmen from Nagaland. None of us here have a business background from any level. We are just children of farmers, children of middle class, lower middle class from all over Nagaland and today we are working hard,” says the REM Group chairman with a sense of satisfaction.
He also disclosed that he chose a rural area like Longtho because Naga people has the potential to grow anywhere in Nagaland. But the scope of building a rural place is better than building a town or a city itself. He calls rural areas as ‘a better incubation place’.
‘If you start in a place like here, Longtho, and if you are consistent and persistent and hardworking, then you would have a better incubation period (for your venture to grow). For example, a hen or a chicken has a good chance of growing if there are no snakes around,’ he says. He added that he mostly employs local youths so as to create an opportunity for them to grow and earn their own livelihood. He expressed deep confidence that some of his company directors and supervisors will have their own companies 10-20 years down the line.
The REM Group is one of the most talked organization in the Longtho area because of its different social activities. Its contribution to the society through its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) especially to the different villages through constructions of toilets, bore-wells, retaining walls etc has caught the attention of people at the state, national and even international levels. But, Along Longkumer said that what the company is simply doing what is needed among the people like good toilets, water supply etc.
“REM Group as a business house whatever we earn or whatever we are doing we have a social responsibility towards our people and we have to do that without partiality, without prejudices without hypocrisy and without expecting anything to be given back in return,” said the REM Group chief.
About politics
Temjen Imna Along Longkumer, who is also an Executive Member of State BJP Unit and Co-convener (Finance) of the party, strongly asserted that his involvement in politics is simply to be able to influence the policies that would reign in ‘Sustainable and Equal opportunity for all round development, so as to ensure a healthier future for the next generation’.
“As a youngsters and as a youth who is at the threshold of transitions, it is important to be involved politically, but not in the politics of toppling each other, or pulling each other or the politics of corruption; but to be in the politics of trying to be an influence in the policy making for the future generation of our people,” said Along Longkumer, while adding that he got into politics not to talk only about elections, but to bring in hope for the future generations through sincere hardword and efforts. He asserted that every political party is the right platform to bring collective and sustainable change for the people which every politician need to realize.
