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INDIA
Mohammed Tabrez of Hindustan Tyres
Bhowray Retread Industry to Upgrade Machinery to Hike Production
market size of about 3,000 tyres.
Hindustan Tyres also holds plans to start a retreading
site in Muzaffarpur in the adjoining state of Bihar,
but the pandemic forces
have forced the owners to postpone the expansion for
the time being. “We have
plans to expand in the neighbouring state of Bihar
also, but now Covid-19 has already disturbed the
whole financial cycle of the existing site, so our focus is more on stabilising the
business in the current
location. The new retread
plant in Bihar will now
take some time,” he explained. The output at the retread site is regaining the ground lost during lockdown, and with the economy opening up, the production is gradually improving with each month. “We have almost touched the 450-tyre mark, but before the pandemic monthly output was 550 plus,” said Tabrez. Association with JK Tread and
Another prominent JK Tread franchisee in Central India which has almost achieved the production levels of pre-covid times is the Raipur-based Bhowray Retread Industry, which is now retreading 900 tyres each month. “Our output has almost attained normalcy as the site usually operates at approximately 1,000 plus tyres per month,” confirmed Sachin Bhowray, Director, Bhowray Retread Industry.
Bhowray retread tyres offers retreading by both precure as well as conventional processes. “Truck tyres are retreaded by the precure process, while OTRs with the hot process.” The site retread about 900 truck tyres and 50-100 OTRs per month. The Raipur based retreader was the among the first retread sites to shift to JK Tread, when the tyre major expanded into the retread market in the year 2009. The plant started operation
exactly two decades ago in 2000.
Mineral-rich Raipur is the major trucking hub in the state with a market size of almost 2,000 tyre per month. “We almost control 50% of the market in Raipur, which is also the major transport hub in the state, supplying minerals inside and outside Chhattisgarh,” he said. Now, the company is also working on phasing-out the old equipment by the end of the year and replacing it with new machiner y to boost production levels by almost 20%. Currently, the site operates on multiple autoclaves of 5, 3, 2 and 2 tyres respectively, and the plan is to replace the smaller autoclaves with the new 5 tyre chamber. “The new tyre chamber is expected to create additional production capacity of at least 200 tyres, bringing production levels to 1,200 tyres each month,” said Bhowray.
upgradation to JKRC has almost doubled the output of the site. “Earlier, we used to retread hardly 200 tyres per month but upgradation as JKRC has more than doubled our production,” he added. Earlier the plant was manually operated, whereas, the upgradation to the JKRC programme transformed the site into a fully-automatic unit.
JKRC Jharsuguda to Expand into OTR Segment
JKRC Loyal Auto World to Expand Area of Operation
JKRC retreader Hindustan Tyres, based in the Jharsuguda district of Odisha, says it will look into expanding its operations into the OTR segment once the current market conditions stabilise.
According to Mohammed Tabrez of Hindustan Tyres, who upgraded their facility to the JKRC concept in 2017, replacing the company’s old steam-based equipment and relocating to a nearby plot, enquiries for OTR retreads with applications in the mining sector are surging. “We were planning to expand into the OTR segment through the conventional hot process in 2020,” he said, but the pandemic forced us to hold. However, there are firm plans to get into the OTR market by the end of year or early next year.” Currently, the company collects only a few OTR tyres from specific clients and gets them
retreaded by other units. “There is definitely business for us in the OTR segment as tyres serviced from other units could be retreaded by us,” he stated. The mineral-rich district of Jharsuguda is regarded as one of the most industrially developed regions of the State of Odisha with deposits of coal, quartzite, fire clay, limestone, granite, white sandstone and laterite stone. Jharsuguda also is a hub for metallurgy-based industries with some of the country’s biggest industrial houses with interests in the mining sector having bases here.
The district has 4 coal mines, while 40 kms away Sundargarh district also has 3 coal mines, and both are catered for through this site. The belt has about 16-17 retreaders with presence of all major organised tread brands like JK, Apollo, Indag, Elgi, Eastern as well as local brands, with a monthly
JK Tread continues to expand its dedicated retread network JKRC in various parts of India. Loyal Auto World, based at Karur in the middle of the South Indian State of Tamil Nadu, started as among the first JK Tread franchisees, when the tyre major first forayed into tread manufacturing in 2009.
The Karur site upgraded to JKRC in 2017, just after JK introduced the dedicated retread center concept in the country.
“When the Karur site upgraded to JKRC, the plant was shifted to ta new location nearby, earlier it was operating from rented premises, but the new
44 Retreading Business