Public sector HMT Ltd has set a target of achieving a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore in the next five years. The company also plans to foray into the aerospace sector and manufacture weapons and missile components.
To tap the emerging opportunities in the aerospace and defence sector, M. D. Sreekumar, Managing Director, said the company has chalked out its plans to improve its revenue.
The company makes components for various weapons which prompted it to think of making weapons, mainly guns and rifles of various specifications. Discussion will be held with the Defence Ministry in this regard, he told reporters here.
At present, HMT has an order book worth Rs 260 crore and another Rs 200 crore orders are expected by March 31 next year.
Of the Rs 260 crore, he said about Rs 90 crore-worth orders are from the defence sector.
Sreekumar was here for the launch of HMT Machine Tools Ltd’s SBCNC 80 — Slant Bed CNC Turning Centre, considered the highest capacity offered in India by any indigenous machine tool manufacturer. The first machine was handed over to P. S. Veera Raghavan, Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, ISRO, Thiruvananthapuram, at a function held at HMT Machine Tool’s unit at Kalamassery.
The company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bangalore-based HMT Ltd, has already bagged orders worth Rs 3.2 crore for the product from BHEL and BEML.
The orders will be executed within two months, he said.
The new machine is designed exclusively for undertaking heavy jobs for heavy engineering industries, power sectors, aerospace and steel industries. The Kalamassery unit, he said, is eyeing a turnover of Rs 75 crore by the end of the current fiscal. The unit manufactures conventional and CNC lathes and single/multi-colour offset printing machines, and caters mainly to the defence, Railways, auto manufacturers and the State Governments
The company has also expressed its interest in associating with the Kochi Metro Rail project. With the availability of sufficient land at Kalamassery, he said the unit could set up a workshop to repair coaches for Kochi Metro.