ET NowPunj Lloyd recently completed its restructuring programme with the intent of shifting its focus to defence. In a conversation with ET Now, Ashok Wadhawan, President - Manufacturing, Punj Lloyd talks about the company's future plans.
Can you tell us about the restructuring programme and your plans in the defence sector?
In the last two-three years, we have seen lot of traction in defence aviation industry for private sector. We have made five verticals. We are going to be concentrating from small arms going up to harbinger. Our first vertical is small arms business where we have a joint venture with IWI. The plant is being set up and should be ready by end of this year. We will get into component manufacturing, initially for exports and then for the domestic market as the licence comes in. The second is our air defence guns. We are finalised in one of the ZU upgrades and that would be closed very soon. That will be one of the first for the army in the gun sector. The third is harbinger. We have fielded a product which is under trials right now. Fourth is land securities. We have gone into a very niche area and we will be the only Indian company to be actually manufacturing product which is a full body truck scanner. We have already reached L1 in one of the programmes. And finally the component business, where we are manufacturing for Sukhoi, helicopters, gun carriage factory and DRDO. Among the verticals, either we are on the final stages of closing an order or we are already in production there.
In terms of order book, if you could throw some light how does it look? Will we see more plants setting up going forward?
Right now, we have a very large defence manufacturing in Malanpur near Gwalior. It is a 65 acre plot, so we will be growing that plot itself. We are building up a facility inside the same large consolidated defence manufacturing, so we are building for small arms. We are also building for a fabrication unit. We will set another plant for assembly and test of our programmes. So three more plants coming up inside there. By end of this year, we should see a large order book.
Can you tell us about the restructuring programme and your plans in the defence sector?
In the last two-three years, we have seen lot of traction in defence aviation industry for private sector. We have made five verticals. We are going to be concentrating from small arms going up to harbinger. Our first vertical is small arms business where we have a joint venture with IWI. The plant is being set up and should be ready by end of this year. We will get into component manufacturing, initially for exports and then for the domestic market as the licence comes in. The second is our air defence guns. We are finalised in one of the ZU upgrades and that would be closed very soon. That will be one of the first for the army in the gun sector. The third is harbinger. We have fielded a product which is under trials right now. Fourth is land securities. We have gone into a very niche area and we will be the only Indian company to be actually manufacturing product which is a full body truck scanner. We have already reached L1 in one of the programmes. And finally the component business, where we are manufacturing for Sukhoi, helicopters, gun carriage factory and DRDO. Among the verticals, either we are on the final stages of closing an order or we are already in production there.
In terms of order book, if you could throw some light how does it look? Will we see more plants setting up going forward?
Right now, we have a very large defence manufacturing in Malanpur near Gwalior. It is a 65 acre plot, so we will be growing that plot itself. We are building up a facility inside the same large consolidated defence manufacturing, so we are building for small arms. We are also building for a fabrication unit. We will set another plant for assembly and test of our programmes. So three more plants coming up inside there. By end of this year, we should see a large order book.
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