Clean India Show
The sheer range of products in demand, and exhibited, was astounding. Astol Cleantech’s Siddhartha Shankar was busy showcasing everything from small domestic to 400 litre industrial vacuum cleaners, from small manual sweepers to truck-mounted ones. Despite the predominance of mammoth machines, Venu Madhavan, GMIndustry Services, Karcher India reminded us that people would never stop looking for, and buying smaller devices. Paolo Scapinello, Export Manager, Filmop (Schevaran) said that one common factor in all enquiries was for products which reduced time and energy required for cleaning. “We wanted quality visitors like this who know what they want and can understand our product, and we are getting those,” he affirmed.
Reckitt Benckiser’s Saurabh Chopra was looking to increasing the company’s presence among distributors and channel partners, while Joseph George, Regional Manager-Unger, looked forward to connecting with FM companies. At the end of three days, when we asked George if his wishes had been fulfilled, he reeled off a list of heads of top FM firms, all of whom had visited his booth.
One of them was Ganga Ganesh, AGM-Training & Development, UDS. When asked what he had come looking for, he said: “Every big client is asking for mechanised and robotic cleaning, as they want to reduce dependence on manpower. When we look for solutions online, we find very little, never suited to our requirements. But at this show, in just a few minutes, I found a granite-polishing machine; I have asked the manufacturer to perform a demo at client sites, following which we plan to procure some units.”
Satish Shukla of ISKCON complimented the impeccable organisation of the show, and confided that the samples of solutions he had gathered at the show would be shared with his superiors before formal discussions for procurement would be initiated. Asha Pathania’s deputy Amit Sarup was to be found flitting from stall to stall, looking for chemicals that can remove the odour of sweat from 1,25,000 PVR seats, five times a day. Dr Rajan Naik from Pune said he was thrilled to find “Biodegradable chemicals, from new entrepreneurs, available at low prices, which can be used by laymen too.”
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SPECIAL SESSION WITH INDIAN RAILWAYS
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Laundrex India Expo
To state that every machine exhibited here was at least semi-automated, if not fully automated, would not be an exaggeration. Perhaps no other sector has witnessed this much change in its engineering.
Sanjeev Dixit, Head-Sales, Aquarius Appliances was besieged by representatives of the hospitality industry who wanted to opt for fully automated washers to wash different kinds of clothes and linen. Akash Dharamsey of ADD-Girbau was engaged by entrepreneurs looking to set up laundromats or laundry cafes, as well as larger institutions looking to establish in-house laundries. B Krishnamoorthy, Business Head- Industrial Products, IFB said he was absolutely thrilled with the steady flow of customers, while Zehen Arora of Stefab predicted that in the future, conventional dry cleaning would be replaced by high-end, green dry cleaning, and wet cleaning would make a comeback.
There were crossovers between expos as well. Amrutraj Kulkarni, VP-Buzil Rossari was technically stationed in the Clean India Show, but had a laundry solution that would help systems operate at just 60 degree centigrade, apart from a dye transfer inhibitor which would prevent colour running from one garment from staining other garments.
