The DRF 450-60S reach stacker ordered by Hind Terminals.

Kalmar wants to include more Indian port cities in its sales and service network.

Since acquiring a majority shareholding in Indlift last year (Forkliftaction.com News #234), Kalmar has been expanding its sales and service network to include Chennai, Cochin and Kolkota. Kalmar also employed more technicians.

Kalmar India managing director and former Indlift owner Vijay Kumar said other plans in the pipeline included hiring sales and service engineers, training programs and a stronger spare parts supply.

"The future looks bright and we would like to play a dominant role in the growing market," he said.

Before Kalmar's acquisition, Indlift employed 18 people at its Mumbai, New Delhi, Vizag and Bangalore offices. Today there are about 20 office-based workers, 20 service engineers around India and 125 subcontracted engineers working with customers.

Jouni Pitkanen, Kalmar India's vice president for service, will be based in Mumbai to assist development of the service organisation and recruit service engineers. New technicians complete a training program at Mumbai before representing Kalmar Services in different regions.

Kalmar's presence in India is represented by about 200 RTGS, reach stackers, terminal tractors and forklifts working in the port and terminal industry.

The Stockholm-headquartered company's most recent Indian order was for six DRF 450-60S reach stackers from Hind Terminals Pvt, in Mumbai. The order included an option for 14 reach stackers. No value was disclosed.

A Kalmar statement said 13 RTGs ordered by Gateway Terminals India Pvt Ltd (GTI) were scheduled for delivery in July with the remainder to be erected by November 15. Last year, GTI ordered 29 E-One RTGs for a new terminal being constructed at the Port of Nhava Sheva. The order was one of Kalmar's largest for India (Forkliftaction.com News #201).

Total container volume in India reached almost five million TEUs in 2005, continuing an average 10 per cent growth trend of the past few years, according to Kalmar market intelligence.