The Union Government is expected to set up a Foundry Development Council soon, which will be an apex body for the foundry sector.
Vice-president of Institute of Indian Foundrymen, N. Krishna Samraj, told The Hindu on Monday that this was one of the major demands of the foundry units and the Government had agreed to constitute the council.
“We are expecting a notification in this regard soon,” he said.
India is currently ranked third in global casting production. With an installed capacity of 10 million tonnes production annually and actual production of 7.5 million tonnes last year, it is second only to China and the U.S. India exported castings worth two billion dollars last financial year.
It has 1.8 per cent share in the global foundry business and export growth this year is expected to be flat.
The country has 4,600 foundry units and almost 80 per cent of these are micro, small and medium-scale units, located in 16 major clusters.
The south, including Chennai, Coimbatore, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, has a large number of foundry units.
Major volume of the Indian casting production goes to the automobile sector. Though the sector is said to have revived this year from the slowdown, foundries are waiting for demand to pick up.
“The capacity has been put in place. All the units have invested in technology too. We are unable to produce to that capacity because of market conditions,” he said.
The industry has seen some consolidation in the last two years. With the Government aiming to increase the share of the manufacturing units in the GDP to 25 per cent, foundry units need to triple production.
It is considered the mother industry for all other manufacturing sectors and requires the capacity to meet the demand. Hence, nearly three billion dollar is the estimated investment needed for the industry to grow to meet the projected growth, he pointed out.
