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Ammann India MD Pushes for PLI Scheme to Boost Road Equipment Industry
Developing
In Short: Dheeraj Panda, managing director of Ammann India, has called for the government to push the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme to boost the design and manufacturing of precision components for road construction equipment in India.
Dheeraj Panda, managing director of Ammann India, has called for the government to push the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme to boost the design and manufacturing of precision components for road construction equipment in India.
According to Panda, while the PLI scheme has had a positive impact on sectors like electronics, its influence on construction equipment manufacturing remains limited.
Panda noted that Ammann India has achieved 100% localization for some products, such as mechanical pavers, and 90-93% localization for others, but emphasized the need for a robust local supply chain for precision components like hydraulic pumps and engine injectors.
He highlighted that India lacks a reliable vendor base for these components, which are critical for the manufacturing of high-quality road equipment.
Panda also pointed out that while the demand for road equipment will not disappear due to the need for maintenance of existing roads, India still requires more roads to fully utilize its potential.
He noted that the government has built an average of nearly 7,000 kilometers of highway per year over the last decade, resulting in a need for asphalt plants and pavers to maintain these roads.
Panda acknowledged that India's road design standards are comparable to global standards, but execution often falls short, leading to issues with newly built highways and expressways.
What's still developing
- “India is yet to have a proper or sound vendor base in precision components like hydraulic pumps, engine injectors, etc. A hydraulic pump requires clearances of some thousandth of an inch. Its tolerances are extremely limited. India is yet to get into a good supply chain base like what you see elsewhere in the world, say Vietnam or Taiwan or China,” said Panda to The Indian Express on the sidelines of bauma CONEXPO INDIA 2026.
- He also said that the situation is better than earlier and there is already an ecosystem of vendors to indigenise the road equipment.
- “PLI has not worked very effectively in the construction equipment industry as of now. India also lacks in research & development capabilities and quality components. Indigenising a product from country A to India is easy, but real manufacturing grows when you design and produce the entire value chain here and make quality components that European or American does not question whether it has Made in India stamp. It should be accelerated, and that probably can be helped with the PLI,” said the MD.
- “When you make a road in Switzerland, that is probably built as per design, traffic flow. If a road is for 20 years, they would make an analysis of traffic coming in the 20th year. It is not that they do something entirely different from what we do here in terms of road-making principles. It is the execution that we lack,” he said.
Sources
- The Indian Expresslink