Govt should come out with special incentives: S Panchal

Snehal J Panchal, Director, Bharat Beams, speaks on the various products for the textile industry and its distinguishing characteristics.

Brief information of the company. What are your major products for the industry? What are the distinguishing characteristics and features of your major products?

We are the largest manufacturers and exporters of weaver beams and dynamically balanced warper beams from India and we are exporting 30 per cent of our production to overseas market. We are having an integrated and in-house manufacturing facility in Ahmedabad so as to maintain stringent quality levels at each and every level of manufacturing process.

Bharat Beams manufacture and supply the beams of quality class Q1 to Q4 as per ISO/DIN norms and each individual beam passes through strict quality control before despatch to the customer. We have our own foundry and we utilise only virgin special aluminum alloy to cast and manufacture the flanges. We are working as an OEM suppliers of beams to European machine manufacturers i.e.. Ramallumin Srl as well as to Prashant West-Point Machinery, Jupiter Comtex, Prism Textile Machinery in India.

We even supply to some of the top European machinery manufacturers. Over 95 per cent of warper beams for Benninger, Karl Mayer and Hacoba warping machines working in India are of our manufacture. We cater to the specialised needs of the customers. A lot of R&D goes in our products that are manufactured. 

Our facilities’ features are as under:

State-of-the-art aluminum foundry for casting of beam flanges

Hard anodising of aluminum alloy flanges

Integrated manufacturing facility with high precision machinery

Full fledged inspection department with latest digital measuring instruments

Two computerised dynamic balancing machines

In-house facility for zinc-plating of beam barrels

Fully automated slotting machines to ensure ISO/DIN norms for hubs

We manufacture warper and weaver beams suitable for natural fibre yarns and for man-made fibre yarns in relaxed and un-relaxed condition utilised in synthetic industry as well as we have an expertise in manufacture of special beams for technical textiles

How is your company meeting the challenges of the market demands today?

As far as the market demands are considered, there is not much demand. However, we do aluminum castings and complete machine learning of the products. In this particular scenario, we were able to catch up with very urgent requirements of the beams.

Some of the customers have already received textile machinery like weaving machines or warping machines. They require beams to run these machines. So, we can cater to this particular urgent needs. We can manufacture beams very fast and supply to them.

Our machines are completely made to order because there are a number of weaving machines available in the market. And for each machine, there is own special beams to be manufactured.

So, but the thing is as far as the market demands are concerned, we right now are doing re-engineering of certain components, and thereby also doing cost optimisation on the same. So, we are trying to have our products not compromising on the quality standards, but it has to be most effective. We are trying to do a lot of R&D on special types of components, which are actually required by a some type of beams.

What are the market prospects for beams in India and how do you plan to position these products?

As being in an accessories business, normally some types of beam requirements are sold with the number of main textile machines to the textile mills. Basically, it is weaving as well as warping machines. If you see there are a number of customers who have placed orders one some type of machines before  Covid-19. Some of these companies are ready to take the delivery of our beams.

Right now, we are receiving higher inquiries for beams in technical textiles category. We have been able to finalise some of the orders.

It has been more than two months since the lockdown. How it has impacted the business? What are your expectations from the government?

Right now, there is a lot of uncertainties prevailing in the textile sector. If we consider migrant workers or cancellation of the pending orders or even backlog of orders because they are unable to find buyers, we do actually see that it will take minimum four to six months more for things to normalise.

In this particular scenario, we would like to see the government to come out with special incentives for that sector, considering its massive role being played in the Indian economy in terms of the revenue and employment generation.

What kind of challenges are you anticipating when you resume business post-lockdown?

If we see in our case, we don’t have any migrant workers in our factory – all our workers are residing in Ahmedabad only. We do even actually going to be dependent on vendors for some types of grinding facilities. Getting delivery from them will be a problem.

Also there is unavailability of special type of raw materials because of this particular situation, which is also one of the figures being faced by us right now.

Snehal J Panchal has done post graduation in marketing and is working with Bharat Beams as one of the promoters and a director since its inception.