Ravin : Growth With Technological Excellence

Mr. Vijay Karia, Chairman & Managing Director, Ravin Group

Q. Ravin Infraproject being one of the leading player in power and energy sector and has established its brands in the market over the time, please brief its journey towards this milestone and share some of its achievements?
Ravin as a group was established in the year 1950 in the name of our flagship company M/s Ravin Trading co. In 1978 we started with cable manufacturing at our 1st plant in Ankleshwar in Gujarat,and in 1997 in the 2nd plant in the name of Ravin Cables Ltd. at Pune, in 2009 in the third plant at Fujairah, U.A.E under the name of Power Plus Cables Co. LLC.

Since inception, the group has been in power and energy sector and has been a reputed and well respected organization with its presence not only in India but all over the world. The group exports its products to more than 50 countries around the world. Exports to so many countries is today a matter of pride but it meant a lot of hard work when we started our exports in 1999. Indian products especially electrical products were considered to be of a lower grade and people were not willing to touch our products. From that stage of non acceptance, to being a supplier of repute to many advanced countries around the world has been a pretty fruitful journey with its own share of experiences.

It was about 10 years ago we realized that mere manufacturing of cables was not something that really excited us, as we wanted to be a complete power products group, with a bouquet of products as well as services. Hence we started with specialized EPC services, went on to manufacture specialized power equipments and we later forayed into solar and into retail energy products. We envisage that Ravin Infra will be a specialized power and energy company with a top line of about 1500 crores in the next 2 – 3 years’ time. It is our vision and the hard work of the entire team that has won us many awards, the last one being to me personally for “Enterprising Entrepreneur” of the year by Economic Times in Feb 2015

Ravin Dual Axis Tracker System installed at BPCL Kota, Rajasthan

Q. How about Ravin Infra’s initiatives in solar energy space? Which are your focus areas?
Our foray into solar energy was a well thought out process. More than 3 years ago when solar was not such a big area of interest, we recognized that this space had not only the potential but would also be an essential and integral part of country’s growth. Today, fortunately we have a government that clearly recognizes the importance of solar energy and is willing to push this area.

A few facts which cannot be ignored are that:

1. Fossil fuels are going to be more expensive. If solar and wind was not there, oil and coal would have been much more highly priced today.
2. India, with its large area and low per capita power consumption would have to have generation to be decentralized
   India has enough solar irradiation to meet the energy needs of the entire world
3. The cost of administration of electricity to agriculture and small villages would be much more than the cost of generation of electricity
4. India’s distribution systems would require lot of capital and overhaul to reduce the huge losses we have.
5. Solar micro-grids would be an answer to all the above listed problems

Therefore, our foray into the solar energy space was a lot more of a specialized process where we forayed into tracker manufacturing for increased efficiencies. We are going to focus on rooftop systems, on agricultural pumps and on Megawatt scale systems with trackers so as to increase the output from the same panels to about 35% more than what a fixed system would generate. We see efficiencies playing a bigger role in the coming years than what it is playing today. Another area that we are looking at is Home Lighting Systems, Solar Chargers and Solar Plug & Play systems.

Q. What are the market opportunities for Ravin Infra’s products in India? How do you plan to position these products?
The market opportunity for our products in India is going to grow to a scale where one cannot imagine the kind of demand that would be there from our vast population. For the cities and commercial and residential buildings we have rooftop systems. For the rural areas as well as smaller towns and villages we have Plug & Play Home Lighting Systems, and for an individual user we have solar chargers, solar torches, solar lanterns, etc

We are already in the retail markets which was a new area for us as over the past six decades we were essentially a B2B organization. Large scale rooftops will yet be B2B. Agricultural pumps and rural products would be a mixture of both and we are positioning ourselves to market these products on pan India basis through Direct Marketing, distributor/dealer/retailer network as well as through e-tail.

Q. What is your marketing strategy for Indian market?
As explained above we plan to market for products through Direct chain of contact with industrial utilities/contractors that we have in our customer bank over the years. For our retail products we have already built retail marketing chain and we have also established our marketing through e-commerce with our products being sold on flip kart, snap deal, amazon, ebay, etc and also have our own portal www.ravinretail.com We also spend a substantial amount on various forms of advertisements as well as through technical seminars and direct customer interactions.

Q. Can you please elucidate the contribution of R&D in the success of your products?
From inception we have been a pretty progressive company in terms of R & D. We are the people who introduced XLPE cables at the cost of PVC cables in India, we are the people who changed the construction of high and medium voltage cables in India to filled cables. In tomorrow’s India there is going to be high emphasis on affordability and optimum costs and efficiencies. Cost of ownership is going to be a very important factor in the buying pattern of India and R & D will play a huge role in the cost of ownership. We have a dedicated R & D department and a team of dedicated professionals who understand the business and the products and therefore we will be well placed in imbibing newer technologies of tomorrow. Next few months are going to see the launch of a host of exciting products from our stables.

Q. Brief us about the quality policy for your business?
Ravin has always been known for its total quality approach built on a Zero Defect policy at all stages, starting with product design to raw materials to final product usage. It is but natural that quality plays the most important role in the sustainability of the business and therefore quality is a non compromisable aspect of our products and imbibed in each member of our organization.

Termination at 40mtr Height

Q. Can you brief us more about your top line product range?
We are not only a product company but also a complete electrical solutions provider and a EPC service provider. We specialize in difficult and complicated EPC solutions for EHV and we are one of the very few highly qualified companies in India. We are also the only company in India to have carried out terminations of 220 KV cables on towers at 40 meter height. We also manufacture moisture removal systems for transformers in collaboration with Transec U.K. Our product range also includes mobile chargers, solar lanterns, solar torches and solar home lighting systems. Hence our entire product range is top line.

Q. Please highlight the Indian and Global perspective of solar product industry?
The solar industry in India today is envisaged to be the largest producer of solar energy in the world by 2030. Today India’s power mix is still dominated by coal which makes about 60% of the installed capacity and solar just stands about 1% of the capacity. Over the last few years, fundamentals of energy supply in India have changed significantly in terms of kWh, solar energy which was about 7 times more expensive than coal in 2010 has today come to a factor of less than 2x.

Globally solar energy has been incredibly successful with USA & China leading the pact. China intends to install as much as 70 GW by 2017, because of the large solar production capacity within the county. Even if we utilize just 0.5% of our entire land mass, we could build as much as 1000 GW from solar, which would meet the demand of the entire country.

In terms of thought process and desire to implement, India today is at par with most global economies such as USA & China. However implementation of this desire will be a challenge and the bottleneck today in India are the overly complicated procedures and the subsidies for installing solar projects. And of course the government trying to regulate the industry. Government needs to move out from trying to be a regulator and a negotiator to be a mere facilitator and bring in simple implementable policies without any bottlenecks and give adequate tax incentives for the next 5 years to whosoever wants to set up a solar plant. Once we do this, see the way the industry grows.

Q. What are the key technological trends that are driving solar industry?
The key technological trends are:

• Improvement of efficiencies
• Cheaper and more cost effective solar panels
• HCPV which today is not put to a very big use is going to be a technological driver tomorrow.

Most of all we see the Tracker System being put to use in a much bigger way than they are being used at present.

Q. According you what are the factors affecting to your business?
The major factor is the lack of funds available for infrastructure growth and unless this area is not addressed, no major businesses nor the country can grow. Secondly, the higher costs of administration and finance in India, where we spend more time and money on filing various tax returns and submitting data to the government than we spend on the business itself. Thirdly the inward looking and the non business friendly licenses and export policies that our country has are something which needs to be changed urgently.

Ravin Dual Axis Tracker System installed at L&T, Telangana

For example, why should an advance license which I take for export orders have a restricted time period for import of materials? Why should there be a restriction on the time frame of imports when I have already fulfilled my exports? Why should there be any kind of penalties or restrictions once exports are completed? Why should there be a form that has to be filled prior to my exports which makes me decide whether I want to claim duty drawback or advance license or DEPP against my exports?

Some simplifications have come in recently, but a lot has to be done. Unfortunately the previous governments have massacred the ease of doing business in India. My plea to the government would be to first make it simpler for Indians to do business in India before inviting foreigners.

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Q. What are the issues you need to address that are related to solar industry?
What we require for the solar industry are the following:

• Get government out of the regulation of the businesses.
• Remove subsidy as it is the major blocking point in progress.
• Give deemed export status to the solar industry
• Incentivise solar by offering tax credit certificates
• Encourage growth of micro / mini grids
• Remove rooftop installations from FSI / municipal regulations of covered area
• Exempt solar industry from GST
• Government is claiming to be giving subsidy for various sources of energy i.e. Diesel, Gas, NEFTA etc. Give solar industry such subsidies in terms of tax credit.
• Reduce the cost of finance for solar projects and get easy finance.
• Allow tax incentive for individual like under Section 80 C for investment in Solar
• Promote in a massive way solar water pumping in all area.
• Review duty structure on important element of raw materials which impact final costs.

The simplest thing for the government to do would be remove subsidies and allow 200% tax exemption as allowed for R&D projects. If the government does all this they will be easily able to achieve the target of 100 GW by 2019 in place of 2022.