Golden days ahead for Indian crushing & screening equipment industry

Golden days ahead for Indian crushing & screening equipment industry
With the recent surge in road construction projects, the crushing and screening equipment market looks good. There are, of course, some technology issues but construction projects’ demand for aggregates makes the crushing industry promising.

  H Sankaranarayanan,   Director-Operations,   Taurian Engineering
  Sanjay Jadhav,   DGM, Crushing &   Screening Business,   Voltas Limited
  R M Varma,   Managing Director,   Marsman India
The crushing and screening equipment market — which is driven by aggregate and construction industries, road projects, and railway lines — is believed to grow at the rate of 13 per cent per annum during 2012-17, according to the industry experts. As the need for artificial sand is growing at a faster pace, the importance of crushing and screening machinery is becoming prominent, day by day.
We have discussed with several industry leaders. Everybody has different view, but they all agreed in one point: The best for crushing and screening equipment market is yet to come.
Growth driversWe discussed with Y Srinivas Reddy, Managing Director, Bevcon Wayors about the growth drivers for this sector. He said, “In my view, growth drivers for the crushing and screening sector are power, steel, cement, mining, and construction industries where huge opportunities exist for the manufacture of crushers and screens.”
Whereas H Sankaranarayanan, Director-Operations, Taurian Engineering, explained, “The main growth drivers for crushing and screening sector are technology, response to customers need, timely delivery, and most important productivity.”
According to Sanjay Jadhav, Deputy General Manager, Crushing & Screening Business, Voltas Limited, “The crushing and screening sector in India is largely coming from infra projects, especially road and mining.”
Technology availabilityFor the crushing and screening industry, technology has never been a problem. Mr. Sankaranarayanan emphasised, “The industry is enriched with all the latest touch screen controls, VPN enabled control systems and computerised CSS settings. Use of technology, however, is becoming less important, but the absence of skilled manpower is an issue.”
While talking about technology, Mr. Reddy commented, “Application engineering for crushing and screening is specialised job and needs expertise in evaluation and selection of equipment. We have limited technology resources for the crushing and screening industry, and the upgrade of technology in line with market demands is slow in India. Hence, for major and critical applications, we are still depending on foreign collaborations and their equipment to substitute our industry needs.”
Status of industryAccording to R M Varma, Managing Director, Marsman India, “India is still a growing market, but technically it is at par with many international companies.” He explained, “Marsman India has been using the same technology as its competitors from foreign countries. There was a time when crushing plant was run by four crushers in secondary stage, but the need for technological improvement changed the scenario to use of single impact or cone crushers in secondary stage.”
But Mr. Reddy had some different views. He said, “Comparison can be difficult proposition, but one thing I can say, we are lagging behind in the technology with respect to US and European countries.”
ProspectsThere is abundant potential for crushing and screening industry in India. Mr. Varma shed light on this by saying, “According to our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the government would target 17,000 km of road construction over the next two years – a goal that looks ambitious given the current pace. In terms of actual construction, between April and October, NHAI had built around 1,170 km. So there is a huge potential in crushing and screening market, since the aggregates for road building are only dependent on crushing industry.”
Mr Sankaranarayanan added, “Unless the new mining policy or the Supreme Court changes its ruling, the industry is facing a tough situation.”As per Mr. Jadhav’s opinion, the sector definitely has a very good demand and growth rate should be about 20 per cent, provided there should not be any political instability.
So far the crushing and screening equipment market looks good. There are, of course, some issues with government policies on coal and mining sector, but the growth opportunity is huge and it is easy to draw a conclusion that golden days are ahead for crushing and screening equipment industry.

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