The road ahead looks promising for trenchless technology in India.
Ehteshamul Haque Director Asia Pacific, Digital Control Inc. How do you look at India as a potential market for trenchless technologies? India remains a promising market for Trenchless Technology, the last 2 years
– Ehteshamul Haque
Director Asia Pacific, Digital Control Inc.
How do you look at India as a potential market for trenchless technologies?
India remains a promising market for Trenchless Technology, the last 2 years have been tough for players as Covid-19 has impacted many projects and its execution. However the market has started it’s revival and Cash flow constraints are also being addressed.
We should be seeing a repeat of bullish market in FY 2022-23, there is huge pent-up demand in the market which is getting liquidated now.
How are trenchless methods of construction technologies evolving in India? Which segments drive the demand for trenchless equipment the most?
The traditional application of Trenchless Technology remains in Optical Fiber, Oil and Gas, Electricity Lines as well as some Water and Sewerage network. In all these areas there are projects announced or remains in pipeline.
However we should be seeing spurt in ‘Last Mile Connectivity’ for ‘Fiber to Home’ in cities in near term as Jio and Airtel battel it out for high speed internet connectivity bundled with OTT platform. In most cases ‘Households’ are waiting for availability of fiber in there locality.
The second area of growth once again comes from telecom sector as government is once again pushing for ‘Remote Area Connectivity’ for the remaining villages as well as ‘U Loop’ connectivity for connected villages to improve uptime.
The third spurt of growth will have to wait a little as ‘City Gas distributors’ are still constrained about the pipeline connectivity as well as availability of ‘CNG/PNG’. The focus remains higher revenue and priced ‘Industrial consumers’ and CNG stations not the domestic connection. However the same will change in 2-3 years as more gas will become available from domestic sources and overall prices will become more affordable. That’s when more than 500 districts of India will need gas network going to every household.
What are the products and solutions offered by your company in trenchless methods?
We offer locating system for Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD), the systems are known as ‘DigiTrak Falcon’.
What are your after-sales initiatives for your customers?
We have resident engineers posted at Delhi, Lucknow, Bhopal, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad to ensure timely support. Apart from this we also organize various ‘Training Schools’ all over to India to ensure availability of trained manpower. We ran couple of intensive month long training workshops to train fresh talent before pandemic. It seems like time has come and we will start the same once again soon.
Could you elaborate on the presence of your company in India? What are the expansion plans?
We have good presence in the market and have service center in Delhi with our service engineers posted in additional 5 cities, apart from extensive network of our reseller partners. We will expand the coverage as per the business needs.
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