Construction and mining equipment cover a selection of machinery such as hydraulic excavators, wheel loaders, backhoe loaders, bull dozers, dump trucks, tippers, graders, pavers, asphalt drum / wet mix plants, breakers, vibratory compactors, cranes, fork lifts, dozers, off-highway dumpers (20T to 170T), drills, scrapers, motor graders, rope shovels and so forth. They execute a assortment of functions like preparation of ground, excavation, haulage of material, dumping/laying in specified manner, material handling, road building etc. These equipment are needed for both building and mining activity.
With a wide production capacity base, India is perhaps the only creating country, which is entirely self-reliant in such hugely sophisticated equipment.
India has only a handful of, mostly medium and massive organizations in the organized sector who manufacture these. The technology barriers are high, especially with respect to mining gear and for that reason the part of SME’s is restricted to manufacture of components and some sub-assemblies.
Prior to the 1960s, domestic specifications of mining and construction equipment had been completely met by imports.
Domestic production started in 1964 with the setting up of Bharat Earthmovers Ltd. (BEML), a public sector unit of the Ministry of Defence, at Kolar in South India to manufacture dozers, dumpers, graders, scrapers, etc. for defence requirements below licence from LeTorneau Westinghouse, USA and Komatsu, Japan. In the private sector, the Hindustan Motors’ Earthmoving Equipment Division, was established in 1969 at Tiruvallur, close to Chennai with technical collaboration from Terex, UK for manufacture of wheel loaders, dozers & dumpers. This factory has because been taken over by Caterpillar for their Indian operations. The machines manufactured by Caterpillar in the Tiruvallur factory are marketed by TIL and GMMCO.
In 1974, L&T started manufacturing hydraulic excavators under license from Poclain, France. In 1980 and 1981, two more units, Telcon and Escorts JCB commenced manufacture of hydraulic excavators (beneath license from Hitachi, Japan) and backhoe loaders (below license from JCB, UK) respectively. Escorts JCB has been taken over by JC Bamford Excavators Ltd. U.K. in 2003 and is now known as JCB India Ltd. In 1970s Escorts Restricted started manufacturing Cranes in collaboration with Faun AG and Rapier & Ransome. (Pulverizer for sale in India)
Volvo and Terex Vectra are the most current entrants in the Indian market place. Volvo has set up their manufacturing unit in Bangalore.
At present they are only manufacturing tippers and the other gear are imported from their parent firm and marketed in India.
Terex Corporation USA and Vectra Ltd. U.K. have formed a joint venture, which has started manufacturing building gear like backhoe loaders and skid steer loaders from Could ’04 at Higher Noida with an investment of USD 12 million. Other equipment in the Terex variety are being sold by means of their agents in India.
Most of the technology leaders like Case, Caterpillar, Hitachi, Ingersoll-Rand, JCB, John Deere, Joy Mining Machinery, Komatsu, Lieberr, Poclain, Terex, Volvo are present in India as joint venture companies, or have set up their own manufacturing facilities, or marketing and advertising organizations.
The sector has created substantial investments in the current past for setting up manufacturing bases, regardless of little volumes and uneconomic scales of production compared to worldwide requirements.