Take NH 44 from Hyderabad, slip into State Highway 1 towards Karim Nagar, about 150-odd km away from the capital of Telangana. From Karim Nagar, travel another 50-odd km towards Ramagundam and you arrive at Basant Nagar, the home turf of KFT Logistics, JK Tyre’s largest fleet customer in the State. A serene and quiet atmosphere prevailed as we visited KFT’s head office to meet Mr. Sarwan Singh Klair, Managing Partner, KFT Logistics, a gentle and pleasing personality himself, to know more about his company’s long-standing association with JK Tyre.
Over half a century ago, in 1965, Mr. Hazara Singh Klair, along with his brother, came down from Jalandhar in Punjab to Basant Nagar in Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana), with a single truck, having bagged the right to transport sand, stone and other materials for Kesoram Cement, a B.K. Birla Group company. Two years later, looking at their dedicated work, the duo was offered the job of transporting raw coal by tippers from Singareni Collieries in Ramagundam. With the production of coal increasing, their fleet size grew from one to 45 tippers, following which KFT Logistics’ complete focus shifted to cement transportation.
Since the late 1990s, KFT has been a preferred transporter for leading cement companies including Kesoram, Orient, Ambuja, Ultratech, ICL, Penna, JP, Vicat Sagar and ACC. The company has recently gone for a massive fleet expansion, reflecting the kind of business prospects in store. Says Mr. Sarwan Singh Klair: “Our business has been growing ever since the Modi Government came to power three years back and we expect the next three to four years to be a big boom time for our segment. We have recently bought a few Volvo-Eicher Pro 8049 vehicles and nearly 120 trucks from Ashok Leyland with cabins built in Madhya Pradesh. Our current fleet size is 370, of which around 220 are bulkers and the rest open trailers. Some of the new vehicles would be heading to Tamil Nadu for getting bulkers built by Trydon Systems, a few would be on their way to Vasant Fabricators in Gujarat for bulker fabrication, while the rest would be fitted with open trailers. Most of our vehicles are from Ashok Leyland, while there are also some from Tata Motors, AMW, MAN and Volvo-Eicher.”
KFT transports cement and fly-ash to parts of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, covering a maximum radius of around 600 km from Hyderabad. The firm has an in-house retreading unit and owns an IndianOil petrol pump, about two km away from its head office, exploring the possibility of opening another petrol pump on the main highway. With a workforce of around 700 people, KFT moves an average of 80,000 metric tonnes of load per month, which goes up to around 1,20,000 metric tonnes during the peak season as in March this year.
The JK bond
Every successful company has partners who stand by its side during ups and downs. For KFT, one such close ally is JK Tyre, with which it holds a special relationship dating back to the 1990s. “We have been associated with JK Tyre for over two decades and are very happy with their products and overall service. The JK Fleet Management Team visits us regularly and responds quickly to our calls. Even their retreading personnel visit us often. We buy only radials from JK Tyre and use JDH for the main drive axle and JUC 3 for the dummy axle. Majority of our tyres are from JK and even when we buy chassis from OEMs, we tell them to preferably fit them with JK tyres”, shares Mr. Singh.
JK radials clock an average life of 1,00,000 km on KFT vehicles, and with roads improving the figure could get even better, thereby proportionally increasing the fuel efficiency of the company’s fleet. Thanks to KFT’s own retreading unit, it has managed to touch a tyre life of up to 1,75,000 km after two retreads. The cement-moving outfit consumes around 700 tyres on an average every year though the number is significantly higher when new vehicles are added to its fleet.
So, is there anything else apart from tyre performance and service support that holds KFT and JK together? The Managing Partner adds: “JK is like a family for us and we share a bond for so many years. They conduct annual conferences which gives us a platform to share our views with people from the transport sector. We also get to meet and interact with their MD and President at these forums. They respect us and our entire community through such initiatives which makes us feel valued.”
Asked what more is expected from JK Tyre, he replies: “We are very happy with JK’s level of service, quality and commitment and expect the same to continue in the future as well.”
KFT might open a JK Trucks Wheels Centre at Basant Nagar or Hyderabad by the end of the year, for further strengthening its association with JK Tyre. The company presently takes care of all tyre maintenance operations, including tyre rotation, wheel alignment, tyre pressure monitoring, etc., on its own and is mulling appointing a dedicated person to handle the tyre maintenance part along with a specialized team.
Aggressive plans
KFT is on the verge of embarking on some mega projects that could see it grow multifold. The company has secured a business to transport bulk cement to infra companies as part of a massive irrigation project underway on the banks of the Godavari river, quite close to Basant Nagar. Another major project the company has recently got associated with is a Rs. 3,000-crore road construction work in Varanasi for which it is sending 100 bulkers to transport cement from Madhya Pradesh to Allahabad, Varanasi and Sultanpur.
Not stopping there, KFT is also looking to foray into LPG tankers as it sees huge potential in the segment. With a new coal washery coming up near its location, the firm might invest in around 50 to 70 tippers to handle its coal transport requirements in future. While all looks positive, the only challenge that looms large for KFT is the availability of drivers. “Driver availability is the biggest challenge in the industry today. We hope the vehicle manufacturers come up with some initiative to raise the number of drivers in the industry. Many of our drivers have gone to their hometown during April and May and, as a result, around 50 of our trucks are standing idle in want of drivers. It would be great help if someone from the industry comes up with a scheme to provide us drivers when we buy new vehicles”, he says.
KFT clocked a turnover of Rs. 80 crores in FY17 and expects to reach around Rs. 120 crores in the current fiscal. By 2020, it hopes to expand its fleet size to nearly 600 vehicles and do a turnover of Rs. 300 crores, all of which seems certainly possible given its booming business and aggressive plans to enter new segments.