Seeing beyond the problems of the pandemic, we further sharpened our ability, in FY 21, to find opportunity in adversity, even as we battled the hardships triggered by the lockdown. The shutdown had brought operations in our Engineering business to a standstill for about six weeks at the start of the year amid the COVID pandemic. As operations resumed, in a phased manner, things started looking up, with new opportunities opening up to put growth back on track in our Engineering businesses.

Responding quickly to the needs of the changing environment, we dug into the core of our strengths to harness the new opportunities and deliver positive growth in one of the worst years in recent history.

During FY 21, we have redesignated the ‘Gears business’ as the Power Transmission Business (PTB), which we believe to be a more accurate representation of our business profile in this segment.

Amid the unprecedented COVID pandemic, Power Transmission Business completed 1,000+ global deliveries in FY 21

Our ability to see beyond today’s challenges, into the realm of future opportunities, enabled us to get our Engineering business quickly back on the track to normalcy after the total shutdown in the first quarter of the year. Undeterred by the slow order finalisation and even deferment in some orders amid the global crisis, we continued to reach out to new and potential customers across our business segments. Proactive planning and deployment of a variety of digital tools helped this business segment secure quite a few orders and commission quite a few gearboxes even amid the restrictions in place globally. Digitalisation became the new mantra of our business as we adopted online and automated tools to drive processes and enable a 360-degree customer service proposition. At the same time, we used this period to start exploring a variety of new product segments and geographies to further improve our turnover and profitability in the coming quarters and years.

New products

We successfully secured one EPC project of water sewerage (USD 22.80 million) from the Ministry of National Planning Housing & Infrastructure of Republic of Maldives, funded by Exim Bank of India, during FY 21, thus underscoring the robustness of our offerings.

Positive signs in negative times

As orders started picking up in the Power Transmission segment from the second quarter of the year, we focussed proactively on timely delivery of products and services to our customers across geographies, despite the constraints of continued lockdowns and travel restrictions in many countries. Our teams worked tirelessly to ensure expeditious and efficacious outreach to customers, to help meet their urgent needs and address their critical problems without undue delay or serious operational downtime. With more countries easing restrictions from the last quarter of the year, order finalisation in this business is expected to pick up.

The Water Business showed commendable performance despite the supply chain disruptions, and shortages of raw materials and labour, which impacted ongoing projects that resulted in time and cost overruns. We expect positive results in the coming months as a result of our continued participation in a large number of tenders during the year. The Government programmes like Atal Bhujal Yojna, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojyna, Namami Gange, Jal Jeevan Mission, etc. are also yielding desired results, and we continue to follow a participatory approach with the Government of India for long-term sustainability to make the country water-secure.

We are fully geared up to tackle issues relating to subdued activity in some of our new business opportunities by looking at new areas of growth. We also received strong inquiries in the Defence segments and are hopeful of concluding more orders in the year ahead.

In fact, we see a lot of new interest from a variety of sectors in both Water and Power Transmission segments. We are in the fortuitous position of making the most of the opportunities unfolding globally as companies are looking increasingly at reliable but lower cost options amid the pandemic, especially for engineering products.

Performance Highlights - Power Transmission Business

Performance Highlights - Water Business (on consolidated basis)

The Indian Government is focussed on Atma Nirbhar Bharat, coupled with various initiatives and incentives to encourage domestic manufacturing and reduce its external dependence for its Defence industry. The Government has set a defence production target of USD 25 billion (including USD 5 billion from exports) by 2025. This augurs well for the Company, which is gradually expanding its presence in this segment at the back of its expertise and experience in the production of critical, high-quality, precision-led Turbo and other equipment. Given the huge potential for growth in this segment, we now plan to set up a large and dedicated multi-modal manufacturing, assembly and testing facility at Mysuru for rotary products. This will have 80-100 tonnes handling capability, in addition to high-precision test benches and a strong integration capability.