One of the monuments that bears testimony to the foresight of one of Mysore’s most illustrious rulers, Krishnaraja Wadiyar, and his able Dewan Sir M Visvesvaraya, is the sandalwood oil factory in Mysore. The facility has for 90 years spread the fragrance of Mysore, literally, to the whole of the world.
While most people do not know that the Mysore factory produces 75 per cent of the globe’s total sandalwood oil output, they happily pamper themselves everyday with one of the most cherished items in their toilet boxes, the Mysore Sandal Soap and the Mysore Sandal Talcum Powder, besides a range of other cosmetic products, made from the oil.
The products are manufactured by the Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited (KS&DL) in Bangalore. While private companies may produce sandal soaps using synthetic perfumes, KS&DL uses pure oil extracted from the tree Santalum Album Linn, a parasitic plant.
The factory is currently one of the only two pure sandalwood oil producing units in the country, the other one also being a government factory at Tekkupattu in Tamil Nadu.
But sadly, another oil producing unit in Shimoga has stopped production, thanks to the acute shortage of wood. Even at the Mysore unit, the oil production has fallen from 26,000 kg per annum not too long ago, to less than 4,000 kg per annum now. The factory, started in Bangalore in 1916, was shifted to Mysore in 1917.
The sandalwood oil factory materialised, thanks to the meticulous planning by Visvesvaraya and the then Director of Industries, Alfred Chatterton. It is housed in a heritage building amidst calm and serene surroundings adjacent to the Railway Workshop at Ashokapuram, off Mananthavadi Road.
Foreign tourists visiting Mysore take home sandalwood oil from the factory outlet as a souvenir since the oil here is of superior quality. It is priced at a whopping Rs 1,250 per 10 gm, and the rate has gone up drastically in the past few years. While the root of the tree yields 60 kg of oil a tonne, the branches and other parts yield just 20 kg. Until 1985, the oil was being exported to cities like London, Amsterdam, Toronto, Budapest, Melbourne, Zurich, New York, Hamburg, Geneva, Paris and Tokyo.
Officials at the factory are of the opinion that the government must relax the rules and make sandalwood a people’s tree. Like teak, it should be possible for people to not only grow it but also sell it on their own. This, coupled with the fear of smugglers, has kept people away from growing sandalwood.
If the rules are relaxed, people will be able to sell the wood either to private parties or the government. The resultant rise in the number of trees will bring more wood to the factories. The number of sandalwood trees in the forests of the Mysore plateau has sharply declined over the years. Hence, sandalwood for the factory is being procured by bidding in a periodic public auction in Tamil Nadu, and from Maharashtra through a tie up with the government there. The wood is purchased at as high a price as Rs 35 lakh per tonne in the auction.
Apart from the forest areas in districts like Mysore, Shimoga, Kodagu, Kolar and Dharwad, sandalwood is grown in parts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and TN too. The variety grown in Mysore plateau has been found to be  superior.
Sandalwood trivia
* The tree must be at least 30 years old to extract oil out of it.  
* Trees growing at higher altitudes are few and far between, but are rich in heart wood from which the yield of oil is high.   
* There is a sandalwood godown in Ashokapuram, like in those districts where it is                                        grown. 
* Sandalwood saplings are available at Rs 10 a piece at Shimoga and Mysore units.   
* There are unauthorised distilleries producing sandalwood oil in Kerala (supposed to have been banned now).   
* The Mysore unit is spread across 56 acres, including sandalwood plantations.