HMT (company)

HMT Limited
हिन्दुस्तान मशीन टूल्स लिमिटेड
Public Sector Undertaking
Industry Engineering
Founded 1953
Headquarters Bangalore India
Key people
 S.G. Sridhar(Chairman and Managing Director)
Products Machine Tools, Tractors, watches
Website HMT Limited
HMT Watches

HMT Limited, formerly Indian Tool, is a state-owned manufacturing company under the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises in India.[1] The company manufactures tractors, watches under its watch division and industrial machines and tools mainly under its Praga division[2] It has a work force of 2,806 with manufacturing units located at Bangalore, Pinjore, Kalamassery, Hyderabad and Ajmer.[3]

On January 6, 2016, the Union government of India announced the closure of HMT Watches Ltd.[4]

History

Hindustan Machine Tools was incorporated in 1953 by the Government of India as a machine tool manufacturing company. Over the years diversified into watches, tractors, printing machinery, metal forming presses, die casting & plastic processing machinery, CNC systems & bearings. HMT is headquartered at Bengaluru ( Bangalore ). Successful technology absorption in all product groups through collaborations with world-renowned manufacturers and further strengthened by continuous in-house R&D. Today, HMT comprises six subsidiaries under the ambit of a holding company, which also manages the tractors business directly.

HMT Limited took over Praga Tools Limited as one of its subsidiaries 1988.[5] Praga Tools Limited was established in May, 1943 as Praga Tools Corporation Limited to manufacture machine tools with its headquarters at Secunderabad. It was renamed as Praga Tools Limited in 1963. It is mainly involved in manufacture of machine tools including CNC machines.

Watch division

In the year 1961, HMT set up a watch manufacturing Unit at Bangalore in collaboration with M/s Citizen Watch Co., Japan. The first batch of Hand Wound Wrist Watches manufactured at this factory was released by the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The most popular mechanical hand wound watch is HMT Janata. There are also other mechanical watches like HMT Pilot, HMT Jhalak (Semi Skeletal), HMT Sona, HMT Braille.

HMT Janata.
HMT Braille watch for visually impaired
HMT Jhalak, the semi skeletal beauty from HMT

In 1972, HMT expanded its watch manufacturing capacity with a set up alongside the Bangalore Factory to manufacture additional watches. In 1975, Watch factory at Bangalore was further expanded to manufacture Main Spring, Hair spring and Shock absorber components.[6]

HMT set up additional manufacturing facilities to produce watch components sets at Tumkur and Ranibagh in the year 1978 and 1985 respectively. Watch factory at Tumkur was partially converted to manufacture Quartz Analog Watches in collaboration with M/S Citizen Watch Co, Japan. To cater to the Niche market, a specialized watch case manufacturing facility was set up at Bangalore in 1983.[6]

A photograph of quartz wrist watch by HMT.

Since 1985, HMT Watches has been involved in making Floral Clocks, Solar Clocks, International Clocks and Tower Clocks, most popular among them being the Garden clock in Bangalore. In the year 2000, HMT Watch Business group was re-structured as HMT Watches Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of HMT Limited.[6] In September 2014, the Government Of India decided to shut down HMT operations in a phased manner.

Operating units

HMT 1811 tractor

HMT Limited has 18 manufacturing units.The constituent subsidiaries are given below while the holding company retains the tractors business group.

HMT’s tractor business commenced its operations in 1971 in technical collaboration with M/s MOTOKOV, Czechoslovakia. HMT started the operation with the manufacture of 25 HP tractor at the manufacturing plant in Pinjore, Haryana state. Over the years, it has developed tractors ranging from 25 HP to 75 HP.

References

  1. ↑ "Links to the websites of Central Public Sector Enterprises under Department of Heavy Industry". Department of Heavy Industry. Retrieved 2012-05-03.
  2. ↑ http://www.pragatools.org/machines.html
  3. ↑ "HMT Ltd gets 136 Crore Government Loan to revive its operations". IANS. news.biharprabha.com. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  4. ↑ "HMT closes shop". The Hindu. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
  5. ↑ "Taskforce on HMT-Praga Tools merger". The Hindu Business Line. 2005-11-23. Retrieved 2011-01-03.
  6. 1 2 3 http://www.hmtwatches.in/9/about-us/history.html

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, January 16, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.