— Jaideep Jain, Director,
Tesla Transformers Ltd
Tesla Transformers, headquartered in Bhopal, is a leading name in
the transformer industry. It has a wide range of transformers and
also generates significant business volume through exports.
Jaideep Jain shares his company's future plans and also touches
upon critical issues affecting the transformer industry. Setting up a
transformer manufacturing plant overseas and partnering with an
international player for EPC contracting jobs is on the company's
growth agenda, says Jain.
Given that India is moving to EHV power transmission, do you have
short-term plans of producing transformers in the 200kV-plus
rating?
Currently, our focus is on standardizing our production range up to
100 MVA in 220kV class for power transformers.
Tesla produces a wide range of transformers. Apart from the
power sector, which other industrial sectors are your biggest
demand drivers?
As of now, the power sector happens to be the biggest business
driver. The demand from the power sector is bigger than that from
the industrial sector.
As we understand, Tesla was looking out for partners for
execution of EPC contracting jobs. What is the current status?
Yes, we are trying to tie up with international players to be
subcontractors for EHV (765kV) projects in India.
Power Grid Corporation of India has planned capex of Rs.1 trillion
in the XII Plan period. How do you gauge business prospects?
We expect that the market will be depressed till 2014 and should
see a pick up after that period of time.
Chinese companies have already arrived on the Indian power
transformer scene. How do you their influence over the next 3-5
years?
Once these Chinese companies are in India, they are as good as
any other international companies like ABB, Alstom etc. in India. In
fact, it will be easier to compete with them since they will also now
face local taxation etc. as any other local company.
The steel ministry has come out with a steel quality control order
requiring that only BIS-certified CRGO be used in the country.
What is your view?
We feel that it is a practical and right approach to take. It is only
with this that that secondary/defective CRGO can be weeded out
of Indian market. This will place everybody on a level-playing field.
Tell us about Tesla's export business. How much of your sales
comes from exports. Do you see this proportion rising in the
coming years? Presently, around 25 per cent of our turnover comes from exports.
We are already successfully exporting power and distribution
transformers since 20 years to more than 25 countries worldwide.
Our intention is to start a manufacturing plant outside India so as
to come closer to our major customers.
Developing power transmission lines under the PPP mode
appears to be an interesting vertical integration to T&D equipment
manufacturers. Does this appeal to you?
Though it is a good business model, it is currently very competitive!
What policy measures would you recommend to reduce India's
high failure rate of distribution transformers?I would say that specifications of transformers must be
standardized. Secondly, vendor evaluation of plants by
utilities must be done so that equivalent companies are
competing with each other, rather than what is happening at
present. In addition, BIS certification of CRGO must also be
implemented.
Please summarize your future plans for Tesla both in the
transformer and EPC contracting space.
We are looking at opening regional offices in every state of India.
Besides, we are planning to expand in the field of dry-type
transformers and unitized substations (USS). And as said earlier,
we also plan to open a manufacturing plant overseas.