'Superfan' makers to increase production capacity

With more people opting for energy saving gadgets in this power-starved era,the city-based Versa Drives Private Ltd, manufacturers of energy efficient Superfan, will be increasing its production capacity to meet the rising demand in the country, a top company official said.
For this purpose, the company is building a new factory in Idigere near here, at an outlay of Rs 10 crore, with a target to sell one million fans in another three years, from the present one lakh fans, Versa Drives Managing Director, Sundar Muruganandhan said.
Talking to PTI, Sundar said the estimated 400 million ceiling fans operating in India for 2,520 hours in a year, require an average consumption of 39 Watts, which is a power consumption of about 40,000 million units (MU) of electricity in year.

However, with Superfan, coming in three sizes, the consumption would come down to 15,000 million units, saving 25,000 MU per year for India resulting in the demand coming down by 10,000 MW, he said.
Moreover, each remote-controlled Superfan, instead of a conventional fan, reduces coal consumption by 73 kg and carbon emission by 90 kg every year, he said, adding Superfan consumes only 35 W of power and saves energy up to 56 per cent.
The company has plans to come out with super-efficient appliances for future homes, including domestic pumps, that would lead to greener environment, Sundar said.
On policy side, though various government agencies have appreciated the functioning of the fan, particularly railways, regulators and major PSUs, the government should take steps to bring VAT and other taxes on the gadget, which worked out to be 20 per cent of the manufacturing cost, he said.

Though Superfan is double the cost of a conventional fan, the energy saver, solar, inverter and UPS friendly, will be a major boon to the power-starved nations, Sundar claimed.