Animesh Manna, National Sales Manager – Mining, Manitou South Asia, speaks on the latest products and solutions from the company for mining applications. What is the current market size of mining equipment? Which segments are driving the demand for these products? I would like to start with a brief history of Manitou Group, especially into the mining business. Manitou is a global brand in the field of material handling with presence in more than 120 countries. The company has nine production sites. We are into rough terrain material handling equipment, and our major products are telehandlers, access working platforms and backhoe loaders. Continuous development in safety, work condition and customer satisfaction level is the major focus and mission of the group. In mining, we have been present in this industry since the very beginning of the organisation. In India, we have been supplying rough terrain telehandlers since 2010. Major applications of telehandlers in the mining industry are tyre handling, cylinder handling, man basket application and general material handling with fork. There is no specific or defined market for telehandlers in any industry. However, we are supplying machines with mentioned attachments to different governmental and private mining companies. The interesting part is that the mining industry is well accepting the safety features of the machine and concept of the machines. New tenders are coming out with a specific requirement of a telescopic handler. We have a 100 per cent market share in the segment of larger tyre handlers (more than 6 tonne capacity) in India. Our major markets are in the coal, iron and cement industries. There is high demand for telehandlers in the construction field, especially time-bound projects like railway and road tunnels, mining and RMCs. In light of the plans of infrastructure creation and reforms in mining, what opportunities do you foresee for construction equipment? Opportunities for construction equipment like telehandlers in the mining industry are from the very first day of the mining – from mine formation/construction/ infrastructure maintenance/operational duties and up to mining machinery maintenance. The different attachments make the difference. One single machine (telehandler with some common mining attachments like fork, basket, tyre handler hook, etc.) can replace and reduce the workshop gathering of different machines for different jobs. What are the latest products and solutions from the company for mining applications? Manitou always remains the world reference in handling and access equipment. In mining, we provide a wide range of attachments to handle: Tyre handler (2t to 16t capacity) with full safety and quick replacement of off road tyres, and fallback arrestor Access platform (1,200 kg capacity) with control from the basket facilities Cylinders handlers (up to 10t capacity) for quick and safe maintenance of boom and bucket cylinders of hydraulic shovels. Other than this, we also provide many other important handling solutions like wheel motors, belt reels, sweeper collectors, drum handlers, etc. All these attachments can be handled with a remote for precise and safe positioning of the load. We also manufacture customised solutions as per the requirement from the industry. More than 400 attachments can be used with a single telehandler. We always exceed the customers’ satisfaction; provide safety and unique customer experience. What are the various challenges faced in the sector you are in? Some of the major challenges in the mining industries are land clearances and environmental issues, which delays the whole process of project planning to deployment of the production equipment. As our telehandler based solutions are not a production equipment but it’s a support equipment for a quick and safe maintenance of the production equipment. Indirectly, the whole process gets affected. The Covid-19 pandemic has adversely affected the non-coal and minor mineral segments. There are stalled projects due to the critical and long process of the regulations. Only in the last few years, we have observed competition in mining equipment sectors.