| |NOVEMBER 202219No construction or infrastructure projects can be completed without using Wires and Cables as every piece of equipment in every house, factory, and infrastructure needs electricity, which can be transmitted only through insulated wires and cablesout separately and the insulating and sheathing materials are taken out sep-arately. Furthermore, these insulating and sheathing materials are also repro-cessed in order to use in some cheaper products and some non-critical items, which can be made from reprocessed or recycled plastics. Therefore, the is-sue of burning plastic materials is very less now, and it is almost non-existent.As per statistics available on fire ac-cidents in buildings, 40 percent of the accidents are attributed to electrical issues. How are the Indian manufactur-ers working to develop safer cables and wires? 40 percent of the fire accidents in buildings are indeed attributed to electrical products or electrical issues. However, the truth is that these acci-dents do not occur due to the failure of electric products, but mainly because of poor workmanship of the electrical contractor or electrician in jointing the cables or terminating the cables within the building which leads to these acci-dents. Therefore, there are failures in the execution of the job in the houses or at the sites which leads to fire acci-dents while it is very difficult to point out the exact reason that caused a fire accident, it is always said that it oc-curred due to a short circuit. However, the reason for a short circuit is really difficult to define, and mostly wherever we have witnessed it, it has been due to poor workmanship on the part of the electrical contractor. The price hike of the critical raw materials, such as zinc, aluminium, and copper, has created a lasting impact on the industry. How is the industry innovating to pass minimum impact to the client? It is very difficult to reduce the impact of price rise in these critical inputs be-cause the cable industry has standard specifications that are approved by the Bureau of Indian standards, IEC, or any standard specifications prevailing in any country. Therefore, we cannot reduce the specification parameters to reduce the cost. However, the only way is to improve the efficiencies of the plant or other costs such as overhead costs and transportation costs. One can reduce the impact by one or one and a half percent, but it is not possible to reduce the impact of the input prices increasing. How do you see the wires & cables industry evolving in the future? The electric wire and cable industry is an essential part of the economy of every country. No work or construc-tion or infrastructure projects can be completed without using Wires and Cables because every piece of equip-ment in every house, factory, and in-frastructure needs electricity, and it can be transmitted only through in-sulated wires and cables. Therefore, in the developing economies, we can witness good growth in the require-ment for new products and a surge in replacement demand for the old infra-structure as well. There are two types of demands. The first is the new capital expenditure for the new projects and the second is the replacement demand for the old infrastructure or old houses. Hence, the demand for wire and cables will always be bullish and growing.
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