Elecon expects 30% turnover from exports next fiscal year

The Anand-based Elecon Engineering Company Ltd (EECL), which is into the manufacturing of material handling equipment and a range of gear boxes, has produced gear boxes for the Stealth Frigate battle ships, that are at present being constructed by the Mazgaon Docks Ltd, Mumbai.

A function was held in Vallabh Vidyanagar in Anand district on Monday, where EECL chairman and managing director Bhanubhai Patel handed over the CODOG-BGS gearbox to P Jaitley, vice admiral, Indian Navy and R M Bhatia, rear admiral and CMD, Mazgaon Docks Ltd.

The gear boxes weigh 50 tonnes and cost Rs 10 crore per unit. The Navy has ordered six such gear boxes for three stealth ships, with the total contract cost being Rs 60 crore.

The company expects 30 per cent of its turnover to come from exports in the next fiscal year.

Companies from the UK David Brown and Textron Group, GKN from Germany and the locomotive division of General Motors, USA, are on the verge of sourcing equipment from Elecon, Bhanubhai Patel said.

Officials said the turnover of the company is around Rs 200 crore. Elecon was established in Goregaon, Mumbai, around 50 years ago. It shifted base to Vallabh Vidyanagar in Anand district of Gujarat in 1962.

Apart from manufacturing material handling equipment, which has been the core business for over four decades, Elecon started manufacturing worm gears for material handling equipment.

In 1976, the company set up a separate gear manufacturing plant to cater for the increasing need of gears.

For the first time in India, the latest technology in gear manufacturing was acquired from Thyssen Getriebewerke GmBH for carburised and ground gears.

In the past four years, the company has invested heavily in technology upgradation, spending over Rs 25 crore in acquiring the latest modular adaptable helical gear series from PIV Germany.

Besides, the company has also acquired hard cutting, skiving, milling lathes, gear testers and gear grinders from Germany and other countries.

Today, Elecon is the largest industrial gear box manufacturer in the country, officials said, with the widest range of products namely worm, helical, spiral, bevel helical, planetary, high speed and marine gears, along with various kinds of couplings.

The smallest gear manufactured by Elecon is of one kg, while the biggest gear is of 50 tonnes.

"We will achieve a turnover of Rs 140 crore in the gears division itself by the end of this fiscal year," said officials.