Mining Equipment Sector Ablaze
India's national Budget 2016 is scheduled on February 29, 2016. Industry is rife with guesstimates, speculations, recommendations to the Finance Ministry and positive expectations which will help fuel their growth.

Ease of doing business, tax rationalisation or reforms, incentivising 'Make in India' initiatives, funding of infrastructure projects, removal of hurdles in all facets of India's development and improving on all economic indicators are very popular expectations by the country as a whole. It would be interesting to watch how the government reveals its plans to deliver its promise in these aspects.

Thanks to Narendra Modi's government, the mining equipment sector is ablaze due to numerous prospects in the offing. EQUIPMENT INDIA presents a cover story on the industry's market vision, challenges, growth deterrents, equipment packages offered to meet the MDOs' requirements, how the industry leaders are gearing up to meet the upcoming business challenges and the importance of aftermarket support to the success of this high value equipment segment.

Dump trucks and bulk transportation systems are critical to the success of any mining operation. A study of this market is provided in the feature on this equipment group. Building synergy with mining, we bring focus to crawler dozers, which are always associated with mining in the role as primary miners or as supporters to the main mining machinery. Although in terms of number of units sold per year, their market size is small compared to other categories, they are still critical to mining as well as any land development work.

Going further, rock breakers are value adding attachments to the entire range of excavation equipment starting from a backhoe loader to the largest of excavators. They can be used for numerous applications like aggregate sizing, demolition, mining and so on. A round up on this attachment market is brought forth, as a special focus in the CASH section.

The equipment industry expects the honourable Finance Minister to implement transformational and long term reforms to sustain the Indian economy, thereby enabling the industry to confidently make large investments in India and evolve as global exporters of their products, in addition to catering to domestic needs. Similarly, funding channels need to be created for the SME segment, essential to the value chain of equipment manufacturing, which is plagued by funds crunch, a major hurdle to their sustenance and growth.

We welcome your valuable feedback.

Please write to shankar@equipmentindia.com

Shankar Srivastava 
Managing Editor