Self-reliance in mining equipment
In line with the Prime Minister鈥檚 vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, a lot of initiatives from the government is visible that promotes self-reliance in production and thus less dependence on imports, saving a lot of forex. While today many of the large size mining machines are being imported to meet the requirements of mining operations in our country, going forward we will have to think in lines of reducing imports by making more mining machinery locally in India. MV Rajasekhar, Director (Mining & Construction), BEML, says, 鈥淏EML through its own R&D set-up is developing and manufacturing various mining and construction equipment incorporating the latest technology with maximum local content of up to 90~95 per cent. In some of the higher capacity mining equipment which were developed recently, the import content is 30~50 per cent and efforts are being made to indigenise the same and reduce the import content.鈥

According to him, BEML鈥檚 aim is to achieve the objectives of reduce dependency on imported mining and construction equipment, local employment generation, self-reliant India, and control the outflow of foreign exchange currency. 鈥淭his is in line with the 鈥楳ake in India鈥 policy of Government of India and 鈥楢atmanirbhar Bharat鈥, a vision of our Hon鈥檅le Prime Minister for a self-reliant India,鈥 says Rajasekhar.

According to Arvind Patil, General Manager, Epiroc Product Company Nashik, even before Government of India鈥檚 initiative on 鈥楢atmanirbhar Bharat鈥, Epiroc India has been producing a large range of mining and construction equipment for its domestic customers and global markets. 鈥溾楢atmanirbhar鈥 initiative has provided Epiroc the required impetus to produce more products in India that we were importing from our global factories. As much as 70 per cent of the machines supplied in Indian mining and construction sectors are produced in India only,鈥 points out Patil.

鈥淲e immensely support the Prime Minister鈥檚 vision of 鈥楢atmanirbhar Bharat鈥 and firmly believe that the mission will help local manufacturers like us to compete with the other leading mining equipment manufacturers at global arena,鈥 says Dheeraj Panda, Director, Sales, Marketing and Customer Support, Sany Heavy Industry India. He adds, 鈥淲e are fully committed to bring the latest technologies in our mining equipment to conduct green mining for the environment safety, because we strongly believe that no development can come at the cost of environment.鈥

Tata Hitachi has state-of-the-art factories at Dharwad in Karnataka and Kharagpur in West Bengal. 鈥淲e manufacture excavators, dumpers, wheel loaders, backhoe loaders etc and have the wherewithal to increase our manufacturing capacity too. Currently, the 100T excavator EX1200V fitted with 6.5 cu m bucket is the biggest excavator manufactured in India by us demonstrating our capability for supporting the 鈥楢tmanirbhar Bharat鈥 platform. We manufacture excavators from 2T-110T in India,鈥 Hemant Mathur, Assistant Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Company, points out on the company鈥檚 strengths on Make in India.

With the mining segment opening up for bigger mines and large capacity mining equipment in huge numbers, it would be ideal for the mining equipment companies to start manufacturing most of these machines here which saves time and money, while also promoting more job creation and gaining more technical knowhow about these equipment. At the same time, the government needs to provide the adequate support from policy front to ease the burden on the manufacturers to set up and expand manufacturing capabilities in the country and to have enough market to sell the machines in the country and also open for export opportunities.