Santosh Kumar Srivastava, Director, Comet Bharat
What are the key trends that you see in the construction and infrastructure equipment market in India?
Last year was a correction rather than a decline. Industry volumes fell about 2 per cent to roughly 137,000 units, with domestic sales down around 7 per cent, but exports grew over 30 per cent and cushioned the impact. Most of the softness came from the timing of project awards, and the recovery in the final quarter confirmed that. With Rs 12,200 billion of public capex committed this year, ICEMA’s estimate of about 7 per cent domestic growth looks realistic.
Demand is broadening, not only from asset creation but from asset maintenance. Metros, airports, distribution networks and urban lighting all must be maintained once built, these need different types of equipment rather only Earthmoving Equipment. Exports have become a genuine second engine, helped by India’s alignment with Stage V norms. Rental is deepening, particularly in specialised access equipment, which lowers the entry barrier for smaller contractors. And safety compliance has begun to influence purchasing, with large engineering, procurement, construction (EPCs) and public sector undertaking (PSU) clients now specifying certified equipment as a qualification condition rather than a preference.
What has been your experience so far in the Indian market? What are your key focus areas? What are the key offerings?
The Indian customer is demanding but rational. The first conversation is almost always about price; the second and third are about uptime, chassis serviceability and spare parts. Anyone who has run access equipment knows that a machine standing idle for want of a hydraulic component cost far more than the initial price difference.
A large part of our work is still customer education. In many cases we are not displacing a competitor’s platform but replacing scaffolding, ladders or an improvised arrangement, so the safety case and the productivity case must be made together, which lengthens the sales cycle.
We focus on segments where working at height is routine: power distribution, municipal maintenance including street lighting and signage, telecom, airports, metro and railway overhead facilities, Plants like; steel plant, Oil Refineries shutdowns and high-rise work.
We manufacture truck-mounted telescopic and articulated platforms confirming to EN 280, from 11m to 45m, mounted on standard Indian chassis so that registration, servicing and spares stay simple. Insulated versions are available for live-line work.
What are the key gaps on the safety front? What can be done to improve both safety and productivity?
Falls from height remain among the leading causes of fatality in Indian construction and over-head , maintenance, which itself accounts for roughly a quarter of all workplace fatalities in the country.
The first gap is the method of access. Workers still reach height on bamboo scaffolding, ladders, or baskets slung from cranes and pick-and-carry machines, none of which was designed to lift people.
The second is regulatory. India has no mandatory national standard for mobile elevating work platforms. The BOCW Act covers work at height in principle, but there is no design conformity requirement comparable to EN 280, and no periodic third-party examination regime. Uncertified fabricated booms therefore compete directly with type-tested machines.
The third is operator competence, which is rarely certified and usually picked up on the job.
The remedies are practical: an Indian standard harmonised with ISO 16368, periodic inspection linked to registration or insurance, and recognised operator certification. Not all of it needs to wait for regulation. Companies like CESL already runs structured operator training for access equipment.
Safety and productivity are the same investment here. A street-lighting job that takes a crew a day to scaffold and another to dismantle is finished in under an hour by two people on a platform that then drives to the next site.
What are the biggest challenges currently facing the equipment industry in India? What policy or industry-level interventions could help address them?
Demand lumpiness is the most immediate problem. The sector tracks the timing of government awards closely, and long receivable cycles in public contracts tie up working capital across the chain.
Second, procurement on lowest-cost basis. Where L1 is the only criterion, a machine built to an international design standard cannot compete with one fabricated without any structural or stability verification and low-cost non-standard product dumped in India.
Third, component dependence. Hydraulics, high-tensile steel, slew bearings and control electronics are still largely imported, and inverted duty structures worsen the landed cost.
Fourth, homologation. Approval of mounted bodywork and inconsistent application of axle load rules across states add avoidable delay for special-purpose vehicles.
Fifth, skilled manpower, and the shortage is sharper among service technicians than operators.
The interventions that would help most are enforceable safety standards, which level the field as much as they protect workers; quality-linked tender selection; rationalised duties on components not made here; an incentive scheme that reaches specialised, low-volume categories; and a standardised, time-bound registration process for special-purpose vehicles.
What do you see as key growth drivers for your business? What will be the key priorities over the next few years?
Demand for truck-mounted access equipment is largely maintenance-led, which makes it less cyclical than earthmoving. Distribution upgrades and the transmission build-out for renewables drive demand for insulated platforms. Metro expansion and railway electrification require overhead equipment work. Airports, data centres, telecom densification and refinery turnarounds all involve recurring work at height, where access time directly affects downtime cost. Urban maintenance is becoming a market in its own right, with street lighting, signage and bridge inspection programmes that cannot be done economically with scaffolding.
Two other drivers matter: tighter EHS enforcement and corporate safety reporting are changing what clients specify, and organised access rental is widening the market to contractors who would not buy outright.
Our priorities follow from that: deepen localisation while holding to European design standards; widen the range across working heights and chassis classes; invest in service coverage and spares, because uptime is what the customer actually buys; expand operator and technician training; and work with ICEMA and BIS on proper standards for the access equipment category.