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Poornima Mohandas

Mumbai , Dec. 16

IF you thought outsourcing to India pertains only to IT, ITES, auto ancillaries and textiles, think again. Aurangabad-based, Duraware Pvt Ltd, the marketing and manufacturing arm of Nirlep non-stick cookware, recently bagged a 300,000 euros (about Rs 1.68 crore) outsourcing contract from an Italian cookware major.

The attractions for the Italian player include lesser aluminium prices and lower labour costs and over-heads, explained Mr Mukund Bhogale, Managing Director, Duraware Pvt Ltd.

``We have a one-year contract from a large Italian company to provide cookware to hotel kitchens under their brand name. We will produce about 50,000-60,000 pieces which have to be at least five notches above the domestic product in terms of quality,'' said Mr Bhogale. He, however, declined to part with the name of the Italian company sighting it as sensitive information for the foreign company.

According to Mr Bhogale, India has large potential as a manufacturing hub and he hopes to get many more such orders.

The company with a turnover of Rs 25 crore claims to have a 35 per cent market share in the domestic non-stick cookware market. TTK Prestige of the Rs 500-crore TTK Group is a close competitor, amongst others.

Duraware has increased its focus on exports to the markets in the UK and Sri Lanka. ``The target is to generate 15 per cent of turnover from exports by mid-2004, which works out to Rs 3.75 crore from negligible levels generated today,'' said Mr Bhogale.

In Sri Lanka, Duraware is the market leader with close to 70 per cent market share but under a different brand name, `Kitchen Star' created in partnership with local players. The rest of the market in the island country mainly consists of cheap imports. The new territories for the company are the UK where a tie-up is in place for local distribution and West Asia.The company, which started in 1968, runs on excess capacities of about 30 per cent as of today but hopes to scale up exports in the next calendar year and set up a new production facility by August 2004.

At present Nirlep products are manufactured at three factories in Maharashtra, two in Aurangabad and one in Jalna and has installed capacities to produce as much as 14 lakh cookware pieces per annum.

Duraware is a closely held company with 90 per cent of the shares held by Mr Bhogale.

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