Denmark's Danfoss to invest Rs 100 crore in TN

Danish company Danfoss A/S has decided to pump in Rs 100 crore towards expanding its drives' production near here, said a top official in India.

He also said that exports out of its plant near here went up by 15 per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic due to non-production in Danfoss' other plants.

The company also plans to increase its headcount by 300 persons from the current about 950.

"With the central government announcing PLI for various sectors, more companies will be investing in expansion, which in turn augurs well for Danfoss drives," Ravichandran Purushothaman, President, Danfoss India, told IANS.

He said, the fresh investment of Rs 100 crore will also increase the local content in the company's drives from 40 per cent to 90 per cent by 2022.

The company drives find extensive applications in industries such as Food and Beverages, Plastics, HVAC, Air Compressor and Textile OEMs, Chemical, Cement, Steel, Water, Oil & Gas, Marine, Paper and others.

Danfoss India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of $6.3 billion-euro Danfoss A/S.

The company's business segments are classified under power solutions, cooling, drives and heating and it supplies components and systems for original equipment manufacturers.

Purushothaman said exports orders increased during the current year owing to lockdown of Danfoss factories in other places due to Covid-19.

"This year, our exports grew by 15 per cent. Last year, we shipped out about Rs 500 crore worth of products," Purushothaman said.

While exports went up for Danfoss India, the Covid-19 had its impact on domestic sales and the company will close this year with a turnover of about Rs 1,600 crore - Rs 1,700 crore.

"As per our original target, we would have touched a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore by 2020 but the coronavirus spoilt that," Purushothaman added.

He said that food, pharma and fisheries industries are expected to log good growth and the three farm laws will change the agricultural sector in India.

"In the dairy sector, the processing is only 35 per cent while in the fish and shrimp sector there is hardly any processing now," he said.

The Indian government is putting in lot of investment in solar inverters and wants targets an installed capacity of renewable energy of 175GW, which in turn would drive up the demand for our drives, he added.

Queried about the learnings from Covid-19, Purushothaman said the company was able to cater to the export market due to multi-skilling of the workers.

"There was shortage of workers. We had multi-skilled about 20 per cent of our workers and they worked in different production lines. Going forward, we will train our workers in all production  lines," he said.

He said Danfoss globally has invested good sum in digitisation and this came in handy during Covid-19.

"There was no problem with employees working from home. Further customers are also adopting to digital mode fast. We offered our services in digital mode. Instead of customers visiting our facility to see the products and processes, we showcased the same online pooling our global technical resources. This in turn cut the travel costs drastically," Purushothaman said.