Sadbhav Engineering anticipates 15-20% jump in revenue in FY18

Mr. Shashin Patel, Chairman & MD, Sadbhav Engineering Ltd

Transport infrastructure, which is expected to improve the GDP growth of the country, is our current focus, says Mr. Shashin Patel, Chairman & MD, Sadbhav Engineering Ltd, in an interview with Maria R.

How do you assess the government’s efforts over the last two years to bring infrastructure development back on track?

I am very bullish on the government’s focus on Infrastructure projects. As a country, we are still behind when it comes to basic infra, as compared to other geographically and economically similar countries. The government’s efforts are pretty commendable. It can be clearly seen that all the new policies are inclined towards giving the necessary boost to the infrastructure sector.

Do we have the wherewithal to step up road construction from the current 22 km/day to 40 km/day, and within the stipulated time-frame?

We are talking here about more than 80% increase in construction output. Given the various partnerships with global companies, we, as a group, are very well placed to adopt any new technology or process to gain such an increase in output. I have full confidence that given the proper support from the government, we can easily meet any reasonable goals set by the administration. Our strength lies in our agile in-house processes and core project management skills. This ensures that we finish all our projects before time and with optimum quality.

What is the current order book of Sadbhav Engineering and major projects in hand?

The current order book of the company’s construction business is Rs.7,800 crore. The road sector is performing quite well. We have won seven new hybrid annuity projects, namely Udaipur By Pass, Waranga to Mahagaon, BRT Tiger Reserve Boundary to Bangalore, Rudrapur Highway, Nainital Highway, Una Highway, Bhavnagar Highway and have even started executing a few, while work on the remaining will commence soon. We’re also focusing on metro projects and Indian railways as a large number of projects are on track by both the authorities. Hence, there will be significant opportunities for construction work. We’re confident of adding a number of orders in FY18, and expect to see a 15-20% jump over the FY17 business in the construction sector alone.

What are Sadbhav Engineering’s plans for the next five years?

India’s transport infrastructure sector is experiencing elevated growth rates on the back of increased government investment, especially in roads, metros and railways. At this point, we would like to maintain our focus on transportation infrastructure projects. We want to give a world-class transportation infrastructure, which will help in improving the GDP growth of our country. We have given ourselves an internal revenue target of Rs.9,000 cr by FY-2020.

What modern construction practices, technologies, and training are imparted to your workforce?

We are constantly tracking the American and European giants, understanding best processes and new technologies that they are using and adopting the same in our organization. We are planning on investing in machines (new technologies) for helping in the maintenances of SPVs – none of the local players are doing the same. We have a very active internal learning and development team and we constantly send our employees to various training programs, to keep themselves updated with latest software and processes in our field of business.