Sunil Misra, Director General, IEEMA

The 2012-2022 mission plan for the electrical equipment industry envisages the output of the electrical industry at USD 100 bn, from USD 25 bn (in 2012). What is the present status?

In order to accomplish the set target of USD 100 billion by 2022, a comprehensive short term and long term strategy shall have to be evolved and goals have to be set and achieved. The task is difficult but not unachievable. From policy and law makers side, it will call for a strong forward looking political will, ensuring political stability and coming up with investment-friendly policy decisions and their fast implementation; addressing the challenges of the issues that are bugging the Power Sector. Higher budgetary spending in Capital Expenditures in infrastructure related projects, shall be essential to support the growth.

Industry shall have to focus on project innovation, superior product quality. We in India spend lot of resources in Research; however there is not much focus on Development. Superior manufacturing and process technologies shall need to be harnessed for cost reduction and becoming competitive.

We are now working on developing a firm roadmap for the mission plan.

With 'Make in India' mission, the government is determined to remove the hurdles faced by manufacturers. Has the electrical equipment industry experienced the change?

There has been an overall increase in power generation by 8.4 per cent since last year. The government had done well to untangle supply side issues by augmenting coal supply as well as taken efforts to boost Transmission & Distribution. The government's 'Make in India' is perhaps one of the most important programmes being pursued by the government of India. The central theme is about transforming India into a manufacturing hub with world class technology. IEEMA being one of the proud partners of the 'Make in India' campaign has identified a four point agenda and has been vigorously pursuing with the policy makers, so as to positively impact made in India products with state-of-the-art technology.

Moreover the electrical equipment manufacturing technology is witnessing significant modernisation while new technology is also being adopted in the manufacturing processes. Technological advancements, like smart grids and policies on emission reduction will influence the future direction taken by the power sector and electrical equipment industry in various countries.

Apart from the slowdown faced by the industry, there were factors like fuel supply and stalled projects adding to the woes. Have these been adequately addressed?

The complexities in acquiring multiple approvals for primary resources like infrastructure, land acquisition, construction power, etc., and disproportionate level of details sought with applications are among the major difficulties in the implementation of projects. These delays have a cascading effect on the capacity utilisation and growth of the BTG and T&D equipment industries. The electrical equipment industry will make the necessary investment to cater to the 12th and 13th plan projected capacities to meet the demand of generation, transmission and distribution sector. Timely completion of generation projects is extremely important for the healthy growth of the electrical equipment industry and in turn overall growth of the country.

Vishnu Agarwal, President, IEEMA

The Cement Industry is one of the largest consumers of electrical energy. What steps are to be taken by a cement producer to bring down his electrical consumption without compromising on the production numbers? Is there any electrical equipment one needs to work on?

Electrical equipments have undergone rapid challenges in terms of technology bringing efficiency in transmission, distribution and consumption of power.  Large number of industry which consume heavy power certainly have whom for reducing their power bill by shifting to modern equipments which are more energy efficient. Timely maintenance of the equipment other than electrical also leads to saving power. Simple things like appropriate use of lubricants, V-belts and equipment responsible for transmission of power within the machines, use of capacitors etc. results in substantial saving of power.

Do you think adequate level of electrical safety is maintained while carrying out online jobs? What precautions you suggest?

Safety in all respect is a must in any production site. Electrical safety should not be compromised as life is precious and an error could result in disabilities and modalities. Endeavour should be made to full proof the process so that human error minimised.

R&D spend is poor in India compared to global standards. There was a proposal for companies to pool resources to this end. Has there been any improvement from this effort?

Strategies for competitiveness for India have become the need of the hour. Our country experienced controlled economy till 1990 and since then a liberalised one. Lowering the tariff barriers in domestic market has unleashed growing competition. This situation forced the domestic market to become competitive to earn sufficient foreign exchange to pay off our import requirements. The only way we can stay afloat is by creating the competitive edge. We should therefore seriously think as to how can we create a competitive edge over the global players in terms of technology, product quality, process innovation, value engineering and so on. Acquiring customers and accessing the markets, which constitute future profitable growth from anywhere on the globe, calls for enhancing competitiveness. A major precondition for competitiveness enhancement is the availability of skilled labour.

The constant changing conditions of international markets forces the stiff conditions that the nation has to face. Therefore innovation is key to the competitive advantages for the country. Technology advances help lower the cost and risk levels thereby reducing the manufacturing capital requirements. Therefore the organisations have to be the Learning Organisations to have the sustainable competitive edge. Increased spending in R&D will help develop cost effective technologies.

T&D losses in India are the highest in the world of which only a third is due to technical reasons. Is there a systematic attempt to address these with active government participation?

For reducing aggregate technical & commercial (AT&C) losses of power distribution companies, the government is considering handing over urban areas with high AT&C losses to private sector on the input based franchisee model with the provision for investment by the franchisee for system improvement. Reducing the AT&C losses is going to be a critical component of this entire strategy. While there have been surfeits of schemes aimed at reduction of AT&C losses, the desired results are still far from being achieved. We are however, hopeful that the Government will give high priority to the power sector and put it back on a high growth trajectory path, while also providing a level playing field to Indian manufacturers to compete with imported equipment in the domestic market.