Make India an innovation champion

June 29, 2015 12:28 pm

The government should promote self certification procedures in all areas. This would enable industry to concentrate more on what they are best at.
Amit Kapur, Director, Everest Group_____________________________________
Haryana-based Everest Blowers Pvt. Ltd. manufactures a gamut of industrial blowers for diverse applications. With a clear focus on cost effectiveness and price implications faced by customers, Everest has emerged as a major solution provider in pressure and vacuum systems. In an interview with Subhajit Roy, Amit Kapur highlights the company’s commitments toward indigenisation.
Boost to manufacturing sector‘Make in India’ is a new major National program designed to facilitate investment, foster innovation, enhance skill development, protect intellectual property, and build best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure. Through this program Indian and foreign companies are invited to make everything from automobiles to agro-value-addition, paper to plastics and satellites to submarines in India and sell anywhere.
The major objective behind this initiative is to focus on 25 sectors of economy for job creation and skill enhancement. Some of these sectors are automobiles, chemicals, it, textiles, pharmaceuticals, leather, aviation, tourism and hospitality, wellness, railways, auto components, manufacturing, ports, mining, renewable energy, biotechnology and electronics. The initiative hopes to increase GDP growth and tax revenue. The initiative also aims at high quality standards and minimising the impact on the environment. The initiative hopes to attract technological and capital investment in India.
The Indian manufacturing sector welcomed the ‘Make in India’ initiative and is very positive about the same. “This initiative shall bring in the required change and shall act as a big booster for the manufacturing sector,” says Amit Kapur, Director, Everest Group.
Prerequisite “Make in India” can be a great success since there are still a lot of opportunities to be tapped in the Indian manufacturing sector, believes Mr Kapur. He says, “We sincerely need to do is to replace the ‘imitation’ practice with ‘innovation’ practice. A right ecosystem shall fuel the spirit of innovation and it shall be great to see domestic companies leading the innovation and thereby making India an innovation champion.”
He adds, “There is a need for development of human resources, greater innovation and research and development. These three should be developed as one process and not in isolation.”
Roadblocks & RoadmapThe ‘Make in India’ initiative has already ignited discussions on various issues. According to Mr Kapur, the typical roadblocks would be difficulty in setting up business, unfavourable policies like retrospective tax, delay in project setup, litigations related to land, poor infrastructure, lack of available skills and corruption. The industry should invest in developing skills and research on technology, set up plants in rural belts, work with local government to improve infrastructure, adapt villages, schools and colleges as a part of their CSR to impart quality education in rural areas. He advocates, the policymakers and industry bodies should come together and implement following:• Bring in the required reforms like labour reforms, make good infrastructure available, reduce red tape for clearances• Build the required skills in the workforce and offer strong vocational training and skill-building• Invest in R&D. Create world-class quality, achieve mastery in technological advancements and develop research-oriented curriculums.
“The government should promote self certification procedures in all areas. This would enable industry to concentrate more on what they are best at,” he adds.Making in IndiaEverest Group currently operates through three state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. These include the parent company Everest Transmission at New Delhi and other two group companies, Everest Blowers Pvt. Ltd. and Everest Blower Systems Pvt. Ltd. at Bahadurgarh, Haryana. Facilities include in house R&D, design and development, production, manufacturing, quality control, inspection and after-sales service.
Excelling in R&D“Everest is the first and only blower and vacuum systems manufacturer in the country to have an in-house R&D centre which is approved by Department of Scientific & Industrial Research,” claims Mr Kapur. “Approximately 3% of group turnover is earmarked for R&D every year.”
Everest Group recently won a national award for excellence in R&D which was conferred by the Prime Minister. A focus on innovative design and high quality machined parts has earned Everest a reputation for excellent workmanship amongst its users. For nearly three decades Everest has offered its customers quality, cost-effective machines necessary to meet the changing technology.
AchievementsSome of the Everest’s recent achievements include designing and manufacturing of:• Seal less roots blowers.• Solvent recovery systems to curb pollution. These systems not only play an important role by making the process eco-friendly but also recover precious solvents for reuse. Most of the pharmaceutical processes have low boiler solvents which are undesirable if expelled into atmosphere. On installation of solvent recovery system, most of the solvent can be recovered back. The demand of such systems is growing exponentially due to increasing environmental awareness and corporate responsibility.• CPCB approved vacuum systems for waste oil re-refining.• Mechanical vacuum boosters for replacement of steam jet ejectors.• SUPERVAC vacuum systems using mechanical vacuum boosters and dry screw vacuum pumps – dry pumping technology.• Extended shaft roots blowers configuration for applications requiring 100 per cent oil free air like aeration in aquaculture forms, plating lines, STPs, etc.• Canned motor mechanical vacuum boosters• MVR (Mechanical Vapour Recompression) blower successfully put to use.• Low temperature thermal desalination systems for producing potable water.
Going internationalBuoyed by the success in the domestic industry, Everest now plans to capture international markets. “International penetration is the current target. All the resources are being mobilised to ensure standardisation, product reliability and inter-changeability to make product of internationally acceptable quality,” Mr Kapur informs.