Foundry industry expects negative growth of 10-15 pc

“The automobile industry is the biggest consumer of castings and demand from that sector fell by 40 per cent in 2018-19 which in turn hit our business,” said Sanjay Shroff, President, Indian Foundrymen’s Association. The auto industry accounts for 32 per cent of the castings’ business.

Despite the dip, however, the production in 2018-19 grew by almost 11 per cent, because of the involvement of other sectors such as the Railways, said Shroff. “The total demand from Railways is estimated to be about 5 lakh tonnes per annum which is likely to increase by 8-10 per cent in the next five years. For now, it constitutes 6 per cent of our business, but there is a lot potential for growth especially with cities bringing in Metro rails,” he added.

Shroff also said there is a lot of demand from other countries and the industry needs to increase its scale of manufacture to cater to it. “The cost of fund, however, is too high. We need time to set up the infrastructure and then there is the gestation period. As such, lower interest rates would be helpful,” the association head said.

He added in the current IT environment, getting skilled labour is becoming difficult. “Most of the youngsters veer towards the IT or the service sector and as such, it is becoming difficult to get access to skilled labourers. We are tying up with ITIs to train the students for our industry and are also encouraging current manpower to upskill,” said Shroff.

Uninterrupted supply of electricity is also a major challenge, said SRV Ramanan, former president and current MD of Sri Venkatachalapathy Alloys. “24x7 power supply is crucial for our industry and as such power outages can really affect manufacturing,” he said adding they have been facing such problems in Rajkot and Belgaum. “Moreover, the government policies do not allow us to buy power from other states which also hampers production,” Ramanan said.

The Institute of Indian Foundrymen will host a three-day international exhibition from February 28 here