We offer the latest international design and quality crushers which saves substantial energy and gives extra output compared to others resulting in lowest cost-per-tonne of crushed aggregate and manufactured sand, says V Senthil Kumar, Managing Director, Propel Industries. Excerpts from the interview.
 
What is the market potential for crushers and screens?  
Global infrastructure spending is expected to increase by another five per cent.  The market demand for crushing and screening plants in the coming years will continue to grow at a steady pace as crushers are widely used in mining, building material, highway, railways and hydro projects, etc.   
 
What are the growth prospects?   
In this segment, infrastructure has to grow in developing countries like India as it is the back-bone of our economy. In a short span of over four years, Propel has registered a market share of eight per cent in the business segment. We are glad to inform that our installed base has spread all over the country. Most of our customers are placing repeat orders for supply of plants as they are of international quality with an Indian price.
 
What is the market for stationary plants and mobile/tracked plants?  
There is equal demand for stationary and mobile plants as it depends and varies from customer to customer and business segments. As of now, tracked plants are widely used in mining application.  
 
Tell us about the product range offered by Propel.  
We are supplying 150 to 400 TPH individual pieces of equipment and also plants on turnkey basis (semi mobile/ skid / stationary).
 
What are the features you have incorporated in terms dust/noise suppression from the plant?  
The awareness of environmental protection is very high and getting pollution clearance from the authorities for quarrying business is very difficult. We are presently offering the latest dust suppression systems along with our plants as an option.  
 
Tell us about the safety features built into the machines?  
The components quality compliance is ensured through CNC (CMM) co-ordinate measuring machines. Our crushing and screening equipments are CE-certified, which is the best confirmation for safety systems of our crushers and the same comes with an inbuilt GSM system where alerts are sent to the user's mobile phones by way of SMS.
 
To what extent is Propel geared up to meet the fast-changing scenario?
After sales service plays a very vital role in this industry as customers are quite demanding on parts availability and service.In view of the same, we have placed our engineers and parts stockyard close to our customers to serve them quickly. We have also introduced AMC & OMC contracts wherein plants are operated and maintained by our well trained engineers and operators on per tonne rate.   
 
Is there any capacity augmentation planned to meet future demand?   
We are expanding our products portfolio by adding new products. We now are delivering two to three plants per month and have a capacity to produce six to eight plants per month. We are increasing our footprints all over India by adding good quality manpower.  
 
Tell us about the technological advancements incorporated in your product range.   
Highest crushing efficiency, lower cost per tonne production, even size distribution, energy saving, world class end product quality, reliable operation, and easy maintenance, are some of the advancements.  
 
What is your take on training of technicians and operators?    
As most of our customers are absentee managers, we are obliged to train the technicians, operators. We have in - house training programme which takes care of all the aspects of training. We also do training stints at the customer's plant which includes operation and maintenance.