WHETHER it is the Coimbatore Industrial Infrastructure Association (COINDIA), the Coimbatore District Small Industries Association (CODISSIA) or the Confederation of Indian Industrys (CII) Coimbatore zone, their members are sure that nothing pays like team work. If COINDIA has set up a Small Industries Testing and Research Centre (SITARC), a massive foundry complex, a modern tool room and a sophisticated business centre to provide infrastructural facilities to pumpset, motor and foundry industries, CODISSIA has built a huge trade fair complex.
The Coimbatore region produces a major share of Indias pumpsets. Foundries are its supporting industry. The business is valued at around Rs.3,200 crore a year and provides jobs to about one lakh people. But many units do not have access to the latest technology because they are in the tiny and small-scale sectors. G. Rajendran, president, COINDIA, said: These companies are not in a position to invest in developing designs, creating infrastructure or developing the skills of workers in order to reach international markets. COINDIA was established to overcome these challenges.
The Union government has granted Rs.39.29 crore to COINDIA to help the small companies improve manufacturing processes and market their products. COINDIA established SITARC at Avarampalayam and Kurichi, both near Coimbatore, where it has installed machinery and equipment worth Rs.5.5 crore for testing motors, pumps and other engineering products so as to enable small industries to get European, American, and Canadian certifications and market their products abroad. COINDIA is setting up three big foundry complexes in and around Coimbatore on a total area of 72 hectares. We have laid roads and built offices, meeting halls and state-of-the-art laboratories for testing raw materials used by foundry and pump industries, said Rajendran. Rajendran was proud that COINDIA was selected as a cluster for upgrading the skills of workers.
COINDIA has a raw materials bank at Chinnavedampatti, Coimbatore, where it stores 3,000 tonnes of pig iron and 700 tonnes of coke to be sold to its members at reduced margins. P.S. Raghunathan, chief financial officer, COINDIA, said: When the market was volatile from September last, we sailed through [because of the raw materials bank].
K. Ilango, president, CODISSIA, predicted that once the economy turned the corner in Europe and the United States, the Western economies would have to turn to India.
Coimbatore offers tremendous opportunities in textile, engineering and auto components industries, he said.
One such promising company is Yenyeskey Machine Tools, which manufactures paper conversion machineries and exports them to 38 countries. The machines include paper roll to roll web off-set printing machines, paper cup manufacturing machines, paper slitter rewinder machines, film lamination machines, web rewinding machines and multi wallpaper tubes for sack forming.
The promoter of Yenyeskey, N.S. Kumar, said: We are the only company in India that manufactures nine models of paper bag forming machines. When a customer confirms an order, we give one of their staff members a month-long intensive training in our factory on the machines ordered for. We also provide the customer with details on procurement and suppliers of raw materials in India. The company has won several awards, including the Outstanding Industrialist Award from Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi in 1990.
K.U. Sodalamuthu & Co. Private Limited manufactures paper conversion machinery for producing paper cones, tubes, edge protectors and pulp-moulded products. It exports to several countries, including the U.S., Russia, China and Turkey. The company won the Engineering Export Promotion Councils regional award for the highest export performance in 2006-07 in the Star Performer-medium enterprise category. The award was given to the companys managing director K.S. Balamurugan by Elamaram Kareem, Keralas Minister for Industries, in Thiruvananthapuram. The company has been winning export awards every year since 1988.
According to Ilango, Germany looks at Coimbatore as a strong centre for the manufacture of components and products. CODISSIA was talking to a couple of German organisations to organise trade fairs on medical care, engineering education in Germany and so on. It has tied up with the India Trade Promotion Organisation to organise fairs on environment, energy, food technology and so on.
