The year 2000-01 was a significant one for Bharti Duraline Ltd. On the one hand, the impressive run of this company continued as it registered a total sales of Rs 69.5 crore achieving a 167 percent growth over its previous year’s turnover and on the other hand, the American partner Duraline bought Bharti Group’s stake in the erstwhile JV.

With major customers like Bharti Enterprises, ITI Limited, MSRDC, Gas Authority, Petronet MHB, Railways, Indian Oil Corporation, Fascel, Tata Teleservices, Tata Cellular, Lucent, etc., Bharti Duraline enjoys a large share in the permanently solid lubricated HDPE duct market. During the FY 2000-01, the company received major orders from Tata Cellular, Tata Teleservices, Fascel, GAIL, Petronet MHB, Spectranet and exports. Besides, the company had orders from the UAE, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It closed the previous FY with Rs 70 crore and is expected to cross Rs 100 crore in 2001-02. The company made significant investments on Cablejet and Superjet optical fiber blowing machines. It has a sole distribution agreement with Plumettaz SA of Switzerland, the maker of these machines. The company has manufacturing facility at Goa, which is ISO 9000 certified.

However, the current fiscal will be a challenging time for the re-christened (expected soon) company. The company will no doubt get a greater thrust from the parent firm, but it will need to fill up the space left by the local partner.