Ensure that stalled projects are cleared without further delay
?Make in India? campaign will push for necessary policy reforms which will make it easier for prospective investors (domestic and international) to explore India as a business destination, particularly for infrastructure building equipment, says Amit Gossain, EVP - Sales, Marketing and Business Development, JCB India. Excerpts from the interview...

How do you assess the export potential?

We have become an export hub for countries like Africa, Middle East, South-East Asia and the Indian sub-continent. We export finished products to these countries and we export component parts, engines and transmissions to our sister units in UK, Brazil and Germany.

To what extent JCB India is a manufacturing hub in terms of design and production?
JCB India has become a hub when it comes to design and production. JCB manufactures its products on the company philosophy of ?One Global Quality?. Products manufactured in India are absolutely world class in terms of technological innovation, safety, comfort, productivity and are now been used globally. In fact, we have recently inaugurated two new world-class plants in Jaipur with the idea of meeting the growth in demand, once the market picks up.

On the design front, we inaugurated the new state-of-the-art design centre in Pune which aims at providing the design and engineering services to meet the design requirements of the group.

How do you look at the demand-supply scenario?
The demand for all construction equipment has gone down because of the ongoing slowdown. However, even in these challenging times, JCB has succeeded in creating new avenues for business through generation of newer markets. Also, according to a report released by A T Kearney, infrastructure spending is expected to grow from 7.2 per cent of GDP in 2012 to 9 per cent by 2017 owing to the investments planned by our Government. This is likely to spur the demand for earthmoving and construction equipment (ECE), and if the industry?s full potential is realised, the result could be a $16 billion to $21 billion industry by 2020.

One of the major growth drivers could be the announcement of Government rolling out infrastructure projects worth Rs 2 lakh crore. Further, allocation of Rs 37,800 crore to National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for roads, Rs 14,000 crore for rural roads and projects like Swachh Bharat and Clean Ganga will drive the demand for construction equipment.

Transportation (development of roads, airports, ports and railways), energy (thermal and hydroelectric power plants), telecommunications, water and sanitation and rural development (rural roads, irrigation) will also be a key growth enabler in the times to come.

What are the latest launches by JCB India?
We offer the widest range of construction equipment in the industry. Our aim is to provide our customers with multiple variants in the same category to ensure they have multiple options to choose from. We recently introduced 12 next-generation products in which, we introduced two new best-in-class product lines in the material handling segment - telehandlers known as Loadalls (Loadall 7 m and Loadall 11 m) and skid steer loaders known as Robots (SSL 135 and SSL 155). Both the products will revolutionise the material handling process in India.

We also introduced an advanced telematics technology known as ?JCB Livelink?. This feature has the potential to change the way Indian construction machinery customer operates. JCB Livelink is an advance telematics system which provides information on service, operation and security of machines. We will continue to introduce products as per the market requirement.

Brief us on your dealer network, service points, and warehouses.
We have the strongest distribution network in the industry. At present, we have 60 dealers and over 600 outlets operating in India and will continue to expand our reach in every part of the country. JCB has strategically set up large warehouses across India (Pune, Chennai, Faridabad and Kolkata) to cater to our large dealer base. These warehouses provide JCB dealers with easy access to all parts of the machine and most importantly, radically help in reducing the machine downtime.


Products manufactured in India are world class in terms of technology.