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Leeboy India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore Technologies (ST) Kinetics, the land systems arm of ST Engineering, a AAA rated company is experiencing massive success in India. After achieving an immense and overwhelming demand for its 150 and 173 horse powered motor graders, the company is now looking forward to launch their heavy duty 250 and 280 horse powered graders.

In an exclusive interview with Construction Technology Today (CTT), the president of Leeboy India, Amarnath Ramchandran said, After having major success in the motor graders of the 150 HP and 173 HP motor graders, the India unit will be soon launching the 250 and 280 horse powered motor graders in the Indian market. We will be the only company to manufacture such heavy duty products in the country.

Seeing a good market for the heavy duty graders, he said, It is a misconception that India is not the market for heavy duty graders and other heavy equipments. In fact the Indian market needs good products, but some manufacturers of heavy duty construction equipment are reluctant to sell their top-of-the-line products here in the country. But we have full faith and trust that the Indian contractors are capable of recognizing useful parameters and as they have, they will continue to put their trust in us.

The heavy machines, Ramchandran feels will triple the productivity albeit at higher costs.But it will also decrease the staff required for operations and maintenance, so in turn will be more cost effective. Fewer number of machines will be required to do more work in lesser time Ramchandran explained. Till now, these heavy duty machines were only limited to mining work but now these heavy machines will be seen operational in road construc-tion too where they can be rented on cubic metre basis rather than time-based.

Leeboy India who has been operating in Gujarat for over three years now, recently formally inaugurated their Gujarat sales and service office. Along with their distributor in Gujarat, Ashapura Automobiles, they have already sold more than 140 motor graders in the Vibrant state.  Our equipment are high quality products using the best of aggregates. A major portion of our market is in Gujarat, the Vibrant state. Gujarati customers have foresight and are prepared to make fairly long-term investments. They are willing to try out new, innovative products like our drill-rigs. They are also willing to purchase our new graders even before they are officially launched added Ramchandran.

According to the company, other than Gujarat, the buyers of construction technology equipments do not buy machines from a company in a single go, but rather tend to try out, check and experiment and buy equipments in small scale. 

The president feels that the coming years are very good for infrastructure in the country. Since the last three years, the government policy has been good for the industry. And with hoards of schemes and projects in the pipeline, it is going to be better.

Commenting on the Goods and Service Tax (GST), Ramchandran said, GST is not an obstacle to growth. By the end of the next month (October), all the glitches born out of the rollout is expected to smoothed out, as per the Finance Minister.

There were some apprehensions too, but with some positives. The equipments and vehicles prices will be dearer as the new emission norms will set in in 2022 told Ramchandran.

The company's revenues are constantly on the rise. In 2014, we exported over 40% of our machines while this came down to 10% in 2016 when we sold 160 graders domestically. Our machines are exported to Middle East by big buyers like L&T and Chetak Infra. Now they have started buying for domestic use too. We are optimistic about the present scenario and expecting a huge boost on profitability. Ramchandran explained

Leeboy India has captured almost 20 percent of the motor graders in Indian market in barely five years of operations in India. The company has over 16 global competitors in the country.

Current sales in the general market are expected to be up by 30-40 per cent compared to last year and are pegged at 1100-1400 graders per annum. LeeBoy is well armed with a dealer network across the country that is supported by their experts. LeeBoy conducts their own training courses at their training school that also offers dormitory facilities to the students coming from across the nation.