Spark Engineering Ltd, located in a 2-acre plot in Ghaziabad, bordering New Delhi, saw sales grow 40% a year to Rs20 crore in 2007-08.
The company exports 80% of the cycle parts it makes—freewheels and shift gears—to Germany and the rest of Europe, supplying to the world’s best cycle brands such as Mifa, Panther Werke and Prophete.
“We have to constantly innovate to stay in business,” says Pradeep Aggarwal, director, Spark Engineering.
Commuting concerns
A significant proportion of the working population even in cities—postmen, newspaper deliverers, snack sellers, construction workers and so on— cycle to work every day.
Their cause hasn’t been helped by roads that have no clearly marked lanes for bicycles, making their daily commute a hazardous affair.
In recent terrorist attacks in Bangalore and Jaipur, bombs were found planted in bicycles. That could crimp demand if more cities and states ask buyers of new bicycles for proof of identity as New Delhi already does.
“This will create a problem because a majority of the people who need a cycle, say in a village, do not have any such proof,” says Ishwar Chugh, director, Atlas Cycles, which produced 250,000 cycles last year.
Still, those who have to, and those who want to, use bicycles, even in cities.
Postman Brahmanand Maji in New Delhi prefers to commute on a cycle. “It’s easier to distribute mail on a cycle.”
And Jesim Pais, a teacher at the New Delhi-based policy research body Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, owns a car and a scooter, but cycles to work 4km away, after dropping his two-year-old daughter at a neighbourhood creche. “I just find it more convenient to use a cycle than a car,” says Pais.
Still, India doesn’t have a cycling culture, says Ludhiana-based Avtar Bhogal, who exports axle hubs to Europe. “In Europe, you can expect a chief executive of a company to ride to office. In India, a politician rides for publicity for one day and the media is all over about it. Then, everyone forgets.”
In June, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party pledged to ride a cycle to work once a week to protest a hike in fuel prices announced by the Union government.
He stopped his pedal-pushing protest last week.