[ 64 ] | INTERVIEW
veying, and dust collection or air control pollution as we call it.
“WE SEE A HUGE GROWTH OPPORTUNITY FOR CHEMICALS”
Vikas Bhatia, Managing Director, RIECO Industries Limited shares his views on industry trends, number of installations, revenue and profitability numbers, partnerships, solution offerings, and others. Excerpts of the interview: pharmaceuticals, intermediate chemicals. The industries which were hard hit are aviation, hospitality, and some related industries but overall, the forecast is that the Indian economy is robust. Similarly, for the chemical industry, we see a huge growth opportunity because the demand for both bulk chemicals and speciality chemicals continue to grow. That will fuel the growth of the entire industry.
VIKAS BHATIA
MANAGING DIRECTOR, RIECO INDUSTRIES LIMITED
The year 2020 was not a good year for businesses due to COVID-19 pandemic. How do you see the industry trends in 2021? It is an interesting question that is on every industry leaders’ mind as there are apprehensions as to how 2021 would unfurl after COVID-induced shutdown and recession. The good news is that the Indian economy is looking very robust and demand has picked up for various sectors. And certain sectors that were resilient to the recession were performing even through the lockdown such as food,
How many of them will get completed in a year or so? Typically, the project timeline depends on the complexity but we would say that projects that are undertaken by us typically take anywhere between 3 to 6 months. Few could go beyond 6 months also. For companies that have placed orders at the beginning of last year, the execution has been happening and because of this, we haven’t faced any revenue shortfall. We continue to hold the revenue numbers as we have done for last year. The momentum is expected to grow further.
In 2020, RIECO partnered with TECAM, RSBP, and ETIA. How have these partnerships helped the company in terms of solution provisioning?
We have added these partners in 2020, a lot of time was lost because of the ups and downs of the pandemic. However, our overall capacity to serve our customers has improved and so has our solution providing capability. Let me begin with TECAM, a Spainbased organization that has built solutions for VOC abatement which means whatever volatile oil compounds are Out of 5,000 installations complet- coming out of various processes are exed by the company, how many in- hausted before the air is released into the atmosphere. Those solutions stallations are related to chemical, will be very helpful wherever petrochemical, gas, energy, the industry process is genagrochemical, and pharma“We are looking at erating any kind of volatile ceutical? recording a 5 per cent compounds. E.g. oil and On average, we comgrowth with profit gas. So, any kind of gas plete over 300 installamargins remaining more that needs to be flared tions in a year and typior less intact, as we up can be passed through cally 40 to 50 per cent had witnessed during the RTO solutions. This of this business is generthe previous year” way apart from dust control, ated from industries such we can also have a solution for as chemical and petrochemical. VOC abatement which TECAM has The number would be anywhere between 100 to 120 installations. We work to provide. Similarly, RSBP is a global player in with all kinds of players in the market including big, medium, and small ones providing fire and explosion safety deas well. Depending on the need, we have vices. Since most of the chemicals and provided different kinds of installations, petrochemicals are explosive or subject both in terms of grinding, powder con- to fire, risks are always present. Now
