Nagpur-based Mecgale Pneumatics Pvt Ltd is an engineering company, well equipped with modern manufacturing and testing facility at Nagpur. Engaged since inception in 1994 in the field of turnkey projects, the company's sole aim has been preventing the nation from health and environmental hazards and working towards India's industrial development. Over the years, it has emerged successful, with excellent track record, in the execution of turnkey projects with specialisation in the field of pneumatic conveying systems, ash handling systems, raw water intake equipment, material handling systems, water and effluent treatment plant and other process equipment.

Mr Ratul Chakravorty, Business Head, a Mechanical Engineer with PGDBA, is associated with the company since last few years and has more than eighteen years experience in Sales, Marketing & Strategising. He drives the business and organisational growth, strategic alliances, CRM for customers in India and abroad. Mr Chakravorty started his career in 1994 in Williamson Magor Group. Being an active member of Rotary International and a "Paul Harris Fellow", he is involved in humanitarian work and efforts of Rotarians towards the society. Excerpts from an eInterview:

What are the products that you offer?

Mecgale is in the field of pneumatic handling for bulk solids - material handling systems like chain conveyor, screw conveyor, coal handling plants, etc; and raw water intake systems equipment like stop log gate, trash racks, sluice gates, and travelling water screens, etc.

What are the applications?

The products we make have varied applications like ash handling for power plants and process boilers, bag house/ kiln/ cooler dust conveying in steel and cement sector, lime coating and desulphurisation system for steel making plants, conveying of raw meal/ limestone in cement plants, carrying raw materials for refractory plants, etc. In a nutshell, pneumatic handling has got several applications spread across all sectors of the industry.

RW1S - Raw Water Intake Systems like stop log gates, sluice gates, trash racks, and travelling water screens are used in the pump house water bay or in sea/river water intake facilities of nuclear/thermal power plants.

MHS - Material handling systems like chain conveyor has got wide application for abrasive fine dust conveying; coal handling systems are used for conveying and sizing ROM coal for solid fuel fired boiler applications.

Why should the customer opt for these?

Today, everyone is conscious in terms of the level of pollution being added to the environment. The law for having zero discharge system is slowly but surely getting implemented across all sectors of industry. In such a scenario, pneumatic handling is possibly the most cost effective way of conveying bulk solids in a totally dust free enclosed system. By using dry ash conveying, use of water, which is precious is also being reduced to a great extent.

How strong/effective is the after sales service?

We have created a decentralised and empowered after sales service team with our engineers strategically placed in all 4 corners of India. We have our own offices in Kolkata and Delhi, and Resident After Sales Engineers in Chennai. The western part of the country is serviced from HO at Nagpur. We keep stock of fast moving wearable items at all those offices to ensure that customer's system downtime is minimised. Most often in all practical scenario the after sales team is not empowered and even non critical decision are awaited from HO, keeping in mind the same we have empowered our site engineers for taking faster decisions which is actually going a long way in keeping our customers satisfied.

How does the cost of ownership over the life cycle compare with competition?

Our PLC (Product Life Cycle cost) is one of the lowest in the industry. We are constantly innovating on our products with cutting edge technology and manufacturing processes to minimise the cost incurred on power and wearable components. Our products are engineered with validated design inputs and are integrated with best in class system like Siemens PLC, IR/Atlas Copco/ELGI compressors to ensure that specific power consumption is the least in the similar application.

What is the company's history?

The organisation was started in the year 1994 by Mr Tapas Sarkar, one of the pioneers in the field of pneumatic handling. Though the beginning was modest and humble, the Company today has grown into a team of 200 with 4 manufacturing units spanning over an area of 15000 sq.mtrs and top line revenue of INR 100 crore in the last fiscal.

What are the company's achievements?

We have been honoured by "ET NOW 2011 Leader of Tomorrow Award" as one of the top 5 engineering products companies in the SME sector. It has been a huge achievement acknowledging our honest and dedicated effort towards the industry and has been a morale booster for us. On the technical front, we have recently commissioned a 325 TPH Fly Ash Dense Phase Conveying System for a distance of 400 mtr for Birla Cement, which is one of the highest in terms of capacity. We are presently commissioning a 65 TPH fly ash conveying system for a distance of 1.9 km for Reliance, which once commissioned would be one of the longest single stretch conveying in the field of pneumatic handling.

Any breakthrough product launch that made a difference?

We have indigenously developed high capacity pneumatic conveying vessel with low specific power consumption. We have also indigenously designed and commissioned a Desulphurisation system for reducing sulphur content in steel in partnership with M/s Jamipol, which is an import substitution.

How is the present business environment?

The present business environment has thrown lot of challenges in front of us. The liquidity crisis coupled with delayed decisions has a cascading effect on new investments in thermal power projects. The uncertainty in coal linkage has also added new dimension to the thermal power sectors problem. As a silver lining we see renewed interest in clean and renewable energy sector and investment in core infrastructure sectors like Cement. Nevertheless in a country as potential like India, it would only be a matter of time when we can see growth happening around us in the same vigour like the recent past.

As an organisation, Mecgale is well equipped to overcome the present challenges by having an exposure to diverse mix of business segments and customers. We are also constantly striving to add value to systems offered by us so that we can always be a step ahead of the competition.

What are the future plans?

We as an organisation have already got footprints across cement, steel, OEMs and other sectors of the industry. We have consolidated our position with our customers with major part of our business coming from existing customers and are now ready for the next step forward. We are now in the field of ash handling for sub and super critical range of power plants under collaborations with leaders in the field. We have identified sectors of renewable/solar energy and are working out products which we can offer to our customers, we are also looking at BOP (Balance of Plant system) for small and medium sized power plants. Above all, we would continue to have honesty and transparency in our dealings with our customers, which we hold very close to our heart. It has helped our customers to look at us as partners in their journey and not suppliers.

Looking forward, we have got ourselves rated by CRISIL and our CRISIL rating is SE 1A (Highest Performance Capability and High Financial strength). We are also in the process of implementing 5S and OHSAS 

(Mecgale Pneumatics Pvt Ltd, Nagpur. Email: info@mecgale.com)