“The  rental  market  for  the  road  building  equipment  is   still  not  very  well developed  in  India.  The market   is   developed  to  a  certain  extent  for  compactors  but  for  other  equipment  like  concrete  slipform  pavers  or asphalt  pavers   or   for  recycling  or   milling  machines,  it   is  still  at   a  very  nascent  stage,” said Ramesh Palagiri, Managing Director and CEO, Wirtgen India drawing attention on the factors a buyer should consider while determining whether to lease or buy road building equipment.

“Rental  market  can  pick  up  in  a  big  way  once  GST  is  implemented, so  that  it  is  easier  for  contractors  to  move  the  machines   from  one  state  to  another,” he observed.

Wirtgen Group, one of the market leaders in mobile road building and road rehabilitation technologies globally, completed its 20 years of operations in India. Wirtgen offers a broad range of services tailored to individual requirements for all areas of road construction, as well as the mining and processing of pay minerals.

Road building equipment market moving towards a boom
While talking about the current scenario for road building equipment market in India, Palagiri said, “The highway sector is moving towards a boom and the road building equipment industry is picking up fast.” 

He adds, “In  the  past  one year, since  the  new  government  took over, there has  been a  increase in  award  of  road projects  and  subsequently in  the  demand  for  road  building  equipment. In the past  one year  almost  5,000 kms  of  road jobs  have  been  awarded  and  in  the  next one year we  expect  another  5,000 – 8,000  kms  of  jobs  being  awarded..”

Driving force in procurement decision making
Apart from pricing, productivity and durability, there other factors as well drive the procurement decision making. Speaking on this aspect Palagiri says, “The  decision should  depend  on  fuel  efficiency, operating  costs,   operator  comfort,  ease of maintenance,   quick  serviceability  all  of   which  our  machines  offer.”

Road building equipment offered by
Wirtgen India
“In the cold milling and road rehabilitation or recycling segment where we are the world market leaders, we have introduced the latest innovations of our product line for the Indian market and this has been well accepted. Cold milling is no longer considered to be a new technology and we are sure the same would follow for cold recycling of roads,” Palagiri said explaining why a buyer should go for road building equipment offered by his company.

He adds, “In the ashpalt paver segment where we are again the world market leaders, we have introduced the DASH 3 generation of pavers, when our competitors are still trying to match the performance and the features of our DASH 2 pavers which were introduced in 2007. In the compaction segment where we were the late entrant to the market in India we have introduced two world-class products and are moving in the right direction to achieve maximum market share.”
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The  rental  market  for  the  road  building  equipment  is   still  not  very  well developed  in  India.

Ramesh Palagiri, Managing Director and CEO, Wirtgen India