Socio-political-economic challenges have affected businesses today, Volvo India Managing director, Kamal Bali said today.

With specific reference to the transportation sector where foundry sector is also deeply involved, three areas namely Climate Change, Urbanisation and Road Safety played a critical role towards transforming the sector’s future, Bali said in his address to the eighth Edition of National Foundry Conclave, organised here by the local chapter of Institute of Indian Foundrymen.

With the Government’s target towards making the manufacturing sector to contribute 25 per cent to the GDP from the current 15 per cent, the recipe for success will be to identify promising 25 industry segments and foster champions for manufacturing in order to ensure success in the long run, he said.

Stating that foundry which is the backbone for the manufacturing sector is certainly awaiting disruption and will piggyback the automotive sector in the coming years, Bali said that disruptive business models will create new revenue models and those organizations parts of this industry have to modernize and make their processes efficient to fuel our nation’s manufacturing growth.

From the Government’s side, pragmatic policy and strategic decision making is required for the development of the foundry industry, he said adding that a foundry boom similar to the IT boom of the past decade is expected from India.

Inaugurating the conclave, with the theme “Structure for Excellence”, Shekar Viswanathan, Vice-Chairman and Whole-time Director, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt Ltd, spoke about the rapid progress made in the automotive industry, one of the prime focus industries for foundry sector in the country, a release said.

Stating that about 60 per cent of Indian foundries are dependant exclusively on the automotive industry, he said that with the introduction of Global NCAP and Indian NCAP safety standard regulations, the automotive industry and the dependant industries including foundry industry have to gear themselves to excel in the global market.

By the announcement of incentivizing electric automobile vehicle manufacturers in the country, Government of India has sent a strong message to the stakeholders from the industry on the country’s focus towards a sustainable future, he said.

“Toyota is expected to transition all its future model of cars to Electric and Hybrid vehicles in line with the global trend,” he said.

With respect to oil and gas sector, Viswanathan said that the Government has to bring in policies for importing fuel that is compliant to Euro 6 ratings which are to be implemented in the country by 2020 for reducing the pollution related issues.

The Institute president and Managing Director, The Wesman Engineering Co Pvt Ltd, Anil Vaswani said that disruption in automotive sector will certainly result in vanishing existing processes in the foundries but will create new efficient processes with sustainability at its core.

With respect to GST implementation, he said that industry is looking forward to a major revamp in the conduct of its financial transactions and has to necessarily adapt to this game changing policy initiative and Institute is conducting a nationwide study on the “Effect of GST in the Foundry sector” which will be released shortly.