Punjab bicycle industry keeps pedalling

The sailing certainly has been smooth for the bicycle industry in Ludhiana which is pedalling high, courtesy the government purchasing.

As against 1.5-2 million bicycles procured by different state government last year, expectations by bicycle industry this year are almost double.

Respective state governments under various welfare schemes place orders for bicycles for which tenders are floated. Onkar Singh Pahawa, MD Avon Cycles Limited maintained that orders from two states — Karnataka and Bihar — alone would be around 2.4 million which certainly are encouraging signs for the bicycle industry.

Ludhiana is a major hub for bicycle production in India. According to the Ludhiana-based industrial organisation Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings (CICU) report, of the 13.5 million bicycle manufactured in country annually, 90 per cent of the production takes place in Ludhiana.

The installed capacity of 6,000 odd units here is around 50,000 - 60,000 bicycles a day, which account for Rs 10 crore worth business daily and the sale of bicycle parts is Rs 15 crore every day.

While the order size of Karnataka is pegged at 1.15 million bicycles (this includes the target for last year as well) for Bihar, the order size is estimated to be 1.2 million bicycles. Bihar government scheme for providing 1.2 million cycles in the current year by providing financial assistance of Rs 2500 for purchase of a cycle under Chief Minister Balik-Balika Yozana.

Even as the outlook for bicycle industry and parts manufacturers in Ludhiana remains positive CICU believes big cycle manufacturers in Punjab are being lured by other states to set up their units in the respective states.

However, the cycle manufacturers in Punjab do not seem too much convinced with this fear. They admit that while they had received proposals from some state governments to expand their manufacturing plants in other states, it was not a viable proposition.