Sidwal Refrigeration Industries Pvt. Ltd., an ISO 9001-certified company, is working out a robust strategy to widen its footprint in the domestic bus air-conditioning segment. The three decade-old firm, floated by an NRI technocrat Mr. Sher S. Sidhu, has become a leading home-grown brand in India’s burgeoning air-conditioning and refrigeration industry. In order to price its bus ACs competitively, the company had pumped in Rs. 10 crores to establish a 55,000 sq.ft. facility at Kala Amb in Himachal Pradesh last year for rolling out CV air-conditioners. The company is betting big on the bus AC segment which currently contributes nearly 20 per cent to its total business.
MOTORINDIA had the privilege to confabulate with Mr. Sher S. Sidhu, Managing Director of the firm, at his corporate office in New Delhi. He started talking about the genesis of the company by reminiscing: “After spending 16 years in America, I came to India and entered the refrigeration business with desert coolers. We signed a contract with Voltas for designing and developing central air-conditioners for them. We even started supplying desert coolers to Voltas, and they did the marketing operations for us. We later extended our product lines with heat convectors, water coolers and fan coil units for central air-conditioners, in addition to air-handling units. We started supplying high-sensible cooling to telecom sectors in the late 80s. In the early 90s we got into railways when we came up with the air-cooled roof-mounted air-conditioners.”
Asked to shed some light on its diversification into bus air-conditioning, he recalled: “In 1999, we were actually approached by Tata Motors to develop ACs for their buses which were supposed to take the then Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, from Delhi to Lahore. That was the turning point for us (to diversify into mobile refrigeration solutions). We would have by now supplied over 10,000 air-conditioners for buses in the country. We started making them at our Faridabad facility and eventually got into the defence applications as well.”
Talking about the company’s new facility for bus air-conditioners at Himachal Pradesh, Mr. Sidhu observed: “It’s a world-class facility with an insulated building and is making ACs exclusively for buses. We are also making coils and heat exchangers there, supported by automatic machines, and also manufacture all the fibre glass bodies in-house. Apart from that, we are making complete frames, pulleys and drives within the new facility. The initial capacity is 200 air-conditioners a month, which is expandable to 500 units. All the products are meant for the domestic market only.”
It may be recalled that Sidwal is the first company in India to develop a 170 mm high roof-mounted bus air-conditioner, the sleekest in the country, which is available in a wide range of models to meet the requirements of mini, midi and large buses.
Sidwal bus air-conditioners are also approved by Tata Motors (the erstwhile Telco) and SML Isuzu (formerly Swaraj Mazda) as OEM fitment. “The roof-mounted unit is designed in such a manner that it can be mounted outside the body of the bus without disturbing the interiors, and since it is very sleek, it allows the bus to be parked in a garage with a low ceiling,” pointed out Mr. Sidhu, who is a mechanical engineer from the University of Michigan.
Expressing his intention to firm up Sidwal’s presence in the OEM space, he shared: “We are primarily supplying to body builders and intend to cater more to the OEM segment as we have had prior experience of working with SML Isuzu. We are open to supplying to Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland and might even cater to tractors and construction equipment in a big way. Although we have not participated in the JnNurm scheme earlier, we might participate this time when the fresh tenders are floated.”
New product range
Sidwal has redesigned its entire product range, all of which will be hitting the market in a new avatar. The company caters to a wide range of buses from 10-seaters to 90-seaters and offers AC models named SR 10, 13, 15, 16, 20, 30 and 36. The AC units are for both inter-city and intra-city applications. “We came up with the SR 16T last year replacing the SR 15 and SR 16 models. We are adding a new feature called ‘Automatic Speed Controller’ which is a step-less control that will be incorporated across all our product lines. In the next phase, we will be equipping our products with a fan-speed controller and it will also happen this year”, added the MD who believes in disruptive innovation, like other mechanical engineers based in the US.
In its bid to fill up the white space in its CV portfolio, Sidwal is gearing up to foray into the truck AC segment too. Mr. Sidhu revealed: “We are developing the products which are tailor-made for Indian climatic conditions. We have a product-line ready, and whenever there is an uptick in demand, we will roll it out commercially. We have already done the prototyping and in-house testing and are going to test-market them subsequently. Based on the market response, we will take a call on its production at our Kala Amb facility (where bus ACs are already being made). What I can assure is that the product range will definitely create a benchmark in the truck refrigeration industry in terms of quality, price and service.”
Although Mr. Sidhu refused to divulge the company’s current turnover, he maintained: “We should be recording a 30 per cent growth during this financial year. We have started on a very positive note and expect it to continue the same way.”