The year 2024 is going to be an important year for Durga Engineering Works, leading manufacturers of extrusion machinery, which plans to export 25 percent of its total sale, reach turnover of INR 100 crore, and come up with two new plants in this year, besides continuing to invest INR 15 crore in its machinery and increase its area by 20,000 sq. ft. every year. This information was revealed by Mr. Charan Dagar, Managing Director of Protomac Extrusion Private Limited and Durga Engineering Works, in an interaction with Wire & Cable India.
Wire & Cable India: Walk us through your business journey, how Durga Engineering Works came into being, major milestones and achievements.
Charan Dagar: Durga Engineering Works was established in 2006. We started our business with crossheads, tooling, tips & die tooling and spare parts used in the capital plant machinery. In 2009, we started manufacturing extrusion lines. We supplied our first cable extrusion line to Chetan Cabletronics, Bhiwadi. In 2020, we wanted to form a private limited firm and that’s how Protomac Extrusion Private Limited was born. Now, we are doing most of our business with the name of Protomac because the brand should be retained and no one should be able to copy it. Today, we are one of the leading manufacturers and exporters of extrusion plant & machinery, having long-standing expertise in the wire & cable, medical tubing, plastic profile, and rubber hose industries.
“Whatever we earn from our company, we re-invest 100 percent in the company, so as to ensure its steady growth and progress. We have made it a target to invest a minimum of INR 15 crore in our machines every year.“
WCI: Kindly share details about your manufacturing capacities and factory setup.
CD: We regularly invest in our manufacturing capabilities and try to enhance our capacity multifold annually. We have set a target to invest a minimum of INR 15 crore annually on our machinery. Besides, we plan to increase an area of more than 20,000 sq ft every year to enhance our capacity. We are currently working on an area of more than 60,000 sq ft and have the capacity to deliver 10 extrusion lines per month. We are expecting to deliver around 100 extrusion lines in the current financial year. In the same breath, we are happy to share that around 75 extrusion lines have already been dispatched in the initial 10 months, which means we have already achieved around 90 percent of our target. I give credit for this to the whole Durga and Protomac team.
In our factory, we can make any component from 50 mm dia to 900 mm dia and up to 4.5 meters in length with the help of CNC machines. We have more than 26 CNC turning machines. Regarding the VMC machine, we have a 6 meters by 3.5 meters by 2 meters component with a single setting machine. We have the four axis continuity machine with us. When it comes to fabrication, we have the laser cutting, three kilowatt laser, six kilowatt laser, CNC plasma, and CNC bending machines. We are also using laser welding nowadays. We also have the powder coating facility in our plant. In a day, we can fabricate more than ten metric tonnes of metal.
WCI: What are your future plans? Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
CD: We are hoping that next year, we cross the INR 100 crore revenue mark. This year, we were just close to achieving this target. In the next five years, we plan to go public and take out the IPO. We have been working on it since the last one year. In the next five years, we should have a turnover of around INR 300 crore.
We think there should be a turnkey machinery manufacturer in India who can cater to all the areas of cable manufacturing, including wire drawing, extrusion, rotating machinery etc. Presently, we are only manufacturing the extrusion machinery. Rest of the components we are neither manufacturing, nor supplying. There is a vacuum in India, so someone should be there to supply the turnkey project. We will discuss this idea with our industry peers if we can get a few people from our industry, otherwise we ourselves will take the risk.
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WCI: Please share your thoughts about this industry.
CD: We think the industry is giving an opportunity to all of us to grow. Of course, challenges are there whenever you are developing anything new. But we guess, it’s not a big task. In India nowadays, there are a lot of opportunities in the technical plant and machinery sector. Earlier, we were looking at China for purchasing machinery. But since 2020, there has been an anti-China sentiment. Having purchased from China once, they failed to get after sales services from them like the spare parts, additional services etc. post one or two years. But now in India, there are all types of machineries and technologies available. So, I think the cable industry is looking at the ‘Make in India’ machinery and even the machinery manufacturers are working towards the same.
WCI: Please tell us about your recent developments and innovations happening at Durga Engineering.
CD: This year, two plants are coming up – an assembly plant and an additional manufacturing plant, which will be operational in April 2024. In the new product category, our main focus since the last two years has been on HT cables and ST cables’ machinery. We have already supplied more than eight extrusion lines for HT cables and we have around eight to nine additional extrusion lines in the pipeline for the next five to six months. From 2020, we have shifted from LT cable machinery towards manufacturing ST cable plant & machinery like Sioplas line, MVCC – medium voltage covered conductor line in the range of 11 KV to 66 KV cables.
Now we are planning to develop the CCV line. One CCV line trial we have established with a leading cable manufacturer and supplier in Kolkata, where we have completed around 70-75 percent of work. After Supermac and Royle, Protomac Extrusion Private Limited is the third company in India to develop the CCV line. We are also focusing on the rubber industry. A lot of rubber hoses are manufactured in India. With our rubber extrusions, we are developing products for the rubber hose industry. We have supplied more than eight extrusion lines to a leading automotive sector player. Earlier, they were importing all these machines from Italy, the US and China. But since the past one-and-a-half years, they have been purchasing all machines from us.
“We have plans to deliver any extrusion machine within 30 days and crosshead within 24 hours”
WCI: Please elaborate on your clientele and market footprint.
CD: In the past two to three years, out of our total sales, we are getting 90 percent sales from top 10 cable and wire manufacturing companies in the country. The remaining 10 percent we are getting from the rest of the industry.
Nowadays, we are working with one of the country’s leading electrical solutions providers on their new project at their 27 acre plant. We are also working with one of the country’s leading electrical and power distribution equipment manufacturers in Tumkur (Karnataka) in the south. They have established a new plant worth around INR 300 crore and we are supplying around 50 percent of the extrusion line there.
We have also completed a project in Chinchpada with one of the top cable manufacturing companies in India. We are also supplying them for their Bhiwadi expansion. We have supplied 12 extrusion lines to a leading manufacturer of conductors and transmission cables for expansion in their 7.5 acre land at Khattalwada Umbergaon in Gujarat. We have also supplied similar products to some other leading manufacturers and suppliers in the industry.
Recently, we got the opportunity to export to the US. It was an achievement for us in 2023-2024. Earlier, we had exported our products to Saudi Arabia, UAE, the Middle East countries and African countries such as Tanzania, Botswana, Ethiopia and Zambia. We are planning to export 20-25 percent of our total sales in 2024. For exports, we have proven products with higher quality.
WCI: We can very well see that you continued your steady growth during Covid-19 pandemic and managed to maintain a lead over your peers in the market. Kindly tell us more about it.
CD: During the Covid-19 pandemic, we remembered something which Mr. Ramesh T Jaisinghani of Polycab, had said in 2008. He said that recession should always be seen as an opportunity. Whenever there is recession, you should go for expansion. When everyone is winding up their business, you should spread your business.
In 2020, during the lockdown, no one was working and there was a financial crisis. During that period, we formed Protomac Extrusion Private Limited. Since then we have invested more than INR 50 crore in our machinery. We have made it a target to invest a minimum of INR 15 crore in our machines every year.
WCI: Please share your business philosophy.
CD: You can say that we are working 24×7. Besides that we believe that we should re-invest our profits into the business. This is what we have been doing – re-investing 100 percent of our earnings in the company, because it will regrow. That was our main concept. We saw a lot of vacuum in the manufacturing of extruder machinery. We felt the pain of our customers and realized that the industry needed manufacturers, who can supply such types of machines within a stipulated time frame.
WCI: What further developments or new technology are you planning to come up in the near future?
CD: When you look at the building wire industry, there is a need for high speed extrusion lines. The demand for high speed extrusion lines in India is catered by Supermac or overseas players. Whereas the majority of the Indian machinery manufacturers are producing machines with production speeds like 300 mpm. We addressed this need for high speed machines and have supplied a machine to Havells having capacity of around 800 mpm and a 900 mpm machine to KEI Industries and one having a capacity of around 700-800 mpm to Polycab.
Our target for 2024 is that we should be delivering any extrusion machine within 30 days. So if someone asks for any machinery, we should have the capability to deliver within 30 days. Crossheads, we should make the delivery within 24 hours.
“We plan to become turnkey manufacturers soon.”
WCI: What role do trade fairs play in your growth? How was your experience as an exhibitor at Cable & Wire Fair 2023?
CD: Exhibitions such as Cable & Wire Fair are a very good platform to meet old clients and potential customers. You get to know different people and get a good amount of business. We have been participating in all prominent exhibitions in Delhi and Mumbai. We participated in the Cable and Wire Fair 2023 in Delhi organized by Tulip 3P Media Private Limited, by taking a stall of around 108 square meters. We consider it as the best show we ever participated in. We had a lot of visitors from India as well as from the Middle East and African countries. The best part of CWF 2023 was that it had a quality footfall. The Indian wire and cable industry is growing very fast and it’s a very good opportunity for us. We got lots of benefits from the last show and obviously, we have booked the stall for CWF 2025 also.
