National Foundry Conclave 08 Inaugurated

Foundry units facing a slump in demand should make use of the opportunity to train manpower to meet the increasing demand when the economy revives, said Vinod Kapur, former President of the Institute of Indian Foundrymen and Managing Director of Gargi Huttenes Albertus Private Limited. Mr. Kapur was speaking at the inaugural function of the National Foundry Conclave 08 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

He said the weakness of the foundry industry was lack of trained manpower and only a very few units had in-house training programmes. Industries that remained busy should focus on imparting skills to their manpower. In terms of technology and expertise, India seemed to be a competitor for the European foundry industry. Investments in the automobile sector was huge and even major car manufacturers look to India for their castings requirements.

Mr. Kapur said in most of the countries the foundry industry was in the doldrums and China topped the list in this. Since October most of the automobile sector foundries in India have reduced production by around 40 per cent as the castings requirement fell steeply. But small and medium foundries in engineering castings have brought down their production by 10 per cent to 20 per cent, while fall in steel foundries production was owing to power problems.

Deputy Chairman, CII (Southern Region), C.R. Swaminathan, said there was a need for uniform growth pattern in all sections for it to become the third largest producer of castings in the world.
Mr. Swaminathan said out of the total castings production, the share of small foundries was 80 per cent while the medium and large foundries shared equally the rest. He said because of the global recession, the customers were asking for price rationalisation. But with the foundries facing several constraints like reduced working hours owing to power cut, the operational costs had gone up.

Chairman, CII (Coimbatore Zone), C.N. Ashok, said despite a tough business environment, the two-day conclave had large participation from the industry. The power intensive textile mills and foundries facing a 40 per cent power cut could look forward for relief as a power producer from a neighbouring State had come forward to sell 300 MW of power matching the TNEB rates. Mr. Swaminathan, without identifying the power producer, said from a neighbouring state 300 MW of power was available for industries in Coimbatore. Mr. Swaminathan later told reporters that the power producer wanted an off-take of 300 MW. The foundry units required 100 MW and if the textile mills came in the entire 300 MW could be utilised and it would come at TNEB rates (Rs. 3.40 to Rs. 4 per unit).

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