You have personally steered the Brand Steelbird from a small time Helmet manufacturer to a whopping Rs.1500 crore Group with diversified business interests. How's been the journey so far and are you satisfied in terms of achieving the goals that you set for the organisation at the beginning?
The journey has been quite a roller-coaster for me. I started out very early by joining business and used to handle all the plants by myself at the age of 18. Work is my passion and I always believe in following my heart. I believe that if you become satisfied with what you have done then you become complacent. I have everything that one can aspire for and I am thankful to God for it.
But as far as work is concerned there is a long way to go. Yes I am happy with what we have achieved till now but certainly not content with it. We are looking at a lot of support from the government because a helmet is a life saving device and I personally have given so many presentations to make helmet mandatory in all the states. The government spends so much on saving lives of the people but has not made the helmet mandatory which has the ability to save so many lives by itself.
Secondly helmet manufacturing should be included in the list of products that have to be of ISI standards. A lot of lives are lost because of cheap and spurious helmets which are non-ISI manufactured and are sold because of which it cannot protect the head from fatal injuries.
Tell us about the genesis of Steelbird Entertainment and Steelbird Motorsports.
The idea behind starting Steelbird Entertainment was to do something new. So, we thought of making an album for myself as I have interest in singing since my school days. Steelbird Entertainment was started as a brand enhancing tool. We also do Steelbird Awards for our dealers each year. Now we have signed many artists under Steelbird Entertainment Banner and the idea is to promote new talent in the area of music and giving them a platform to launch themselves.
Similarly, Steelbird Motorsports aims at bringing all the aspects of motorsports, food, entertainment and music together to make motorsports a family affair so that the family as a whole can come together and have fun under one roof.
You are now also looking at the Riding Gears segment to manufacture and retail high street riding gears, i.e. bikers suits, globes, jackets etc for overseas as well as domestic consumption. Tell us about this foray.
Most of the companies today are launching high end bikes and people are becoming riding enthusiasts. For all the riding lovers we have launched riding gear under the brand Ignyte. The Ignyte range of riding gear has been designed in Italy and adheres by international standards.
It is designed for comfortable riding in all weather conditions. We are pioneers in the helmet industry and going to target the complete segment of biking accessories in the upcoming years.
Tell us about your manufacturing capabilities and capacities.
With the growing demand of helmets all around, we have setup three plants for helmets. We were having two helmet plants in Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) and recently we have started one more plant for helmets also in Baddi. We have three plants with installed capacity of all three plants is respectively 22,000 units, 55,00,00 units and 66,000,00 units.
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