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Interview with Mr Vallabh Thumar

Mr Vallabh Thumar
Mr Vallabh Thumar
CMD
Alidhra Weavetech Group
Alidhra Weavetech Group

Incorporated in 1982, Alidhra Weavetech Group is group of companies in diversified markets covering the complete value chain of textile weaving industry – Fiber to Fashion; with core interests in yarns, fabrics and mainly machineries markets. The Group has its core competencies in designing and building complete range of ‘Weaving Preparatory’ and ‘Weaving’ machines for the Synthetic Fibers Industry. It enjoys a position of respect and admiration in its sectors for providing the latest world-class technologies designed specifically for the Indian subcontinent markets, and is the only large Textile Machinery Manufacturer who has all their products developed indigenously without any technology transfer or collaboration. The Group has also invested in agriculture as one of its varied businesses supporting techno-commercial agricultural research & development activities. Mr Vallabh Thumar, Founder & CMD, is the technocrat and successful entrepreneur who with his innovative visions and dexterity in his field has enabled Alidhra Weavetech Group climb the ladder of success and create niche in arena of textile machinery. Mr Thumar is a qualified Mechanical Engineer with 25 years of experience in the industry. Speaking exclusively with Face2Face team, Mr Vallabh Thumar narrates about present state of global textile machinery industry and market potential of India in select sector.

The textile industry occupies a unique place in the economy of the country. How has Alidhra Group been positioning itself in this vital industry?

Alidhra Weavetech, today, offers the largest range of Twisting and Weaving machinery in the Indian Market. The product range majorly covers the requirements of the Indian Textile Industry keeping in mind the limitations of an Indian entrepreneur. All the products are indigenously designed to be most suitable for Indian environment of dusty and high temperature surroundings along with simple and easy to understand user controls.

Alidhra Weavetech is the only high-speed Shuttleless loom manufacturer in India and is committed to offer performance at par with global standards and yet tuned for the low-skilled Indian operators.

 

Can you provide us an insight into global and domestic textile machinery industry in current times?

Globalization has definitely benefited the entrepreneurs of the textile industry. Easy access to technology at most competitive rates has definitely boosted investments in the industry. While European players have capitalized on advantages of superior technology and available low cost production bases around the globe, domestic sector has taken the opportunity to serve the large unorganized sector which still accounts for a major chunk of investment.

Since the government’s policy does not provide any major boost to the domestic textile machinery industry, it has still registered a decent growth thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of the people in domestic textile machinery industry. The imported machinery still account for a fairly large chunk of investments. To change this and to make Indian textile machinery industry self-reliant, active steps need to be taken by government.

What all are core competencies of Alidhra and its products?

Alidhra Weavetech has all its products indigenously developed. This has enabled us to localize the solutions to the needs and limitations of our markets. While the products perform at par with global standards, the ease of use by way of simpler\ controls and intuitive user interface has enabled our products to be easily accepted by the lowest segment of the textile industry. Even the construction has been tuned to our harsh, dusty and warm environments. All such changes have been welcomed by Indian entrepreneurs who see such features as a must for high reliability in our environment.

India is known to be positioning first in terms of the installed weaving capacity in the world. While not getting complacent about this, in your opinion, which all are the areas of improvement that sector needs to focus?

Though India has one of the largest weaving capacities in the world, we still do not have any influence on the global fabric markets. The reason being that more than 90% of the capacity exists on the old and inefficient powerloom machines. While these machines are being discarded in competing markets like China and kept in museums in Europe, Indian entrepreneurs are still investing in them

.

The government efforts in form of TUF scheme have had a positive effect on overall upgradation needs, but still they need to be fine tuned to provide maximum benefit to the weaving sector which still is the weakest link in the Indian textile industry.

Alidhra Weavetech, true to its vision of supporting the Indian weaver, is the first and only Indian company to offer Hi-Speed shuttleless looms like AirJet and WaterJet looms which are covered under the TUF scheme and are the need of the hour for the Indian Weaving sector.

Your Company has both domestic and international network. Where do you foresee your business growing most? Which all would be emerging markets for players of your level?

Alidhra Weavetech still believes that the Indian Textile Industry has not reached the apex in terms of investments and there’s still a lot more scope in the domestic market. While, we are putting conservative efforts on increasing exports, our major growth is still going to come by boosting the domestic sales.

The entire Indian Weaving Industry is poised for upgradation and Alidhra Weavetech is going to be right there standing by the Indian Weaver in its quest to achieve globally accepted fabric quality.

Current provisions by Indian Govt regarding Repos/Reverse Repos and curb in fuel costs has spread the breeze of some what relief across the market. How would you like to comment on this? How will these provisions help Alidhra to make good business?

Though any kind of fluctuations in any commodities or interest rates do affect us indirectly, we still believe that the Business Confidence level of the industry is the biggest factor that directly affects us.

The current steps will definitely help ease inflation and will definitely boost credit demand. But, it’ll still take time for the investors to regain confidence to make long term investments. Being a capital goods industry, Textile Machinery Industry can only enjoy the fruits of current steps when it boosts the business confidence of the investors towards long-term investments.

Any upcoming launch from your R&D department?

Alidhra Weavetech recently launched a prototype of first Indian AirJet Loom at ITME-India 2008. Staying on the path, Alidhra Weavetech will further launch a wide range of variants of AirJet, WaterJet and Rapier Looms in the weaving segments. Also, Alidhra Weavetech announced its entry into Industrial Yarn Twisting segment at the same exhibition. Relating to that we’ll be launching a range of twisting solutions targeted at Technical Textile Industry in near future. All, again, with Indian entrepreneur and Indian environment in mind!

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Published on: 12/01/2009

DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.

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