Global cleaning equipment makers eye India

The global cleaning equipment makers such as Fioren Tini and Sinmaz of Italy, Hako, Kranzle and Stahle of Germany are planning to set up shop in India, in the wake of the growing retail and industrial sector in India and growth of the Indian cleaning solutions industry in the last five years at over 30-40 per cent.

With over 360 malls coming up in major cities and the capacity of the luxury hotel rooms in India to double within two years from the current 30,000 rooms, the evolving Indian cleaning industry is poised to grow annually by at least 50 per cent within a year and the demand for industryal cleaning equipment is expected to grow from Rs 100 crore to Rs 1000 crore in near future, estimate industry sources. The equipments are mainly used by industries like pharmaceuticals, hospitals, automobiles, food and bevarage, retail and the transportation industry, besides various institutions.

"At least a dozen global cleaning equipment majors are planning to enter the Indian market, either through joint ventures with Indian partners or on their own," says Jaiprakash Nair, managing director of Virtual Info Systems, the organiser of the first international exhibition on cleaning industry to be held in India - Clean India- Pulire, Mumbai from 29 November - 1 December. Pulire is one of the largest cleaning industry exhibition organisers in the world based in Italy.

According to him, most of these companies are currently in discussions with India's leading cleaning equipment manufacturers like Roots Hako, Manmachine (already has a joint venture with Karcher), Jade, IPC India, Godrej & Boyce and the like for either distributorship or joint ventures. At least 25 international companies from Italy, Germany, Netherlands, UK and Spain will participate in the exhibition.

According to Mangala Chandran, editor, Cleantech, a B2B magazine for the industry, most of the large Indian corporate houses now outsource cleaning works to 'professional houses with mechanised solutions'. As a result, the organised cleaning industry in India has grown to over Rs1800 crore annual turnover, with a growth rate of 30-50 per cent in the last five years.

House keeping and facility management is the largest segment of the cleaning industry in India with over Rs 650 crore, followed by the water treatment segment with Rs 500 crore, pest control (Rs 400 crore), cleaning equipment and chemicals manufacture with Rs 250 core and laundry with Rs 80 crore.