After making a breakthrough in the Indian bus AC market by rolling out AC-DC air-conditioners at Busworld 2013 in Mumbai, Rishi Pathak-led Haiger India has now gone a step further by entering a new business model related to its area of expertise. The new entity, Haiger India Air Conditioning Pvt. Ltd. (HIAL), focuses on the bus insulation business and is primarily involved with overhauling of bus interiors to enhance its cooling quotient.
It may be recalled that Haiger India was established in 2004 by Mr. Pathak who has over 20 years of experience in the bus air-conditioning industry. Since inception, over 5,000 units of Haiger bus ACs have been sold till date.
In an exclusive tête-à-tête at his office-cum-plant at Dwarka, New Delhi, Mr. Pathak noted: “Apart from selling Haiger air-conditioners for more than a decade, we have diversified into HIAL in July 2013. After certain unfortunate incidents in Delhi in December 2012, there was a blanket ban on using sunfilms or curtain in buses. 
As a result, the ACs were not giving the desired output as required. So we have delved deeper into the insulation of buses and started revamping it completely. We started getting buses from our old customers and are working on the insulation part by opening up the interiors. Thereafter, we have gone into its basic structure and insulated it holistically. We were able to enhance the insulation by incorporating nitrile rubber along with the regular bus body panels and by replacing the usual thermocol material with a very robust alternative which is completely unbreakable, unlike the regular ones.”
Opening its revenue streams in the bus insulation business has provided enough cushion to offset the decline in the market volumes of bus-airconditioners. Mr. Pathak admitted to the current downturn in the market, but said the new vertical has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for him. “Last year, the (bus AC) market was very sluggish and things were not going the way it should have gone. During this period, many of our customers who were adding new buses to their fleet opted for our insulation & revamp solutions. They bought fully-built buses, which are available off the shelf from the OEMs, and gave it to us for improving the insulation which takes 15 days at the most. We are actually seeing a pull effect from the market rather than a push and, at the same time, we are also addressing a major problem in the market by leading to better efficient air-conditioning in buses”, he said.
HIAL is primarily targetting the staff transportation and school bus segments with its new-found business and is confident that its expertise in bus air-conditioning will provide a major thrust for it to achieve its targets. Mr. Pathak affirmed: “It (insulation) actually helps the buses’ inner environment and doesn’t allow the external heat & noise to percolate inside the bus. At the same time, the internal chilling ambience also doesn’t get affected. Being an air-conditioning expert, we are quite aware as to what the duct size should be and how the air should flow in from ACs to the passengers through the ducts. By doing all this we are saving a lot of energy without compromising on the performance of the AC unit which has given us a boost in the industry.”
HIAL has recently developed interiors for buses on Mahindra’s T – 16 & 25 platform. The products, with new and enhanced insulation, were displayed to Mahindra’s sales and marketing teams and dealership network across the country during the annual dealership meet held in Goa recently.
Mr. Pathak feels that HIAL’s initiatives have got enormous response from the Tier II & Tier III cities, more than the metro cities. With the demand for air-conditioned buses increasing rapidly in rural areas, air-conditioning is no longer considered a luxury but a basic necessity for passengers.
Meanwhile, Haiger India, which offers Haiger ACs for buses, mainly in the retrofit market, expects a market revival only when the new government that comes to power at the Centre comes out with industry-friendly policies. The company is also going slow when it comes to new products. “We had launched the AC-DC units last year but are awaiting its market feedback and need to gauge the performance of the products sold. We are also re-engineering the product so that it would work under the ambient conditions here. We are also experimenting with our insulation technology and await the results, though we are pretty sure that things will work well”, he revealed.
It may be mentioned that Haiger India offers bus air-conditioners ranging from 8 KW to 50 KW which are suitable for application in mini, midi and large buses, ambulances, mobile health units as well as mobile homes. Currently, it has two facilities, operating at 70 per cent utilisation, at Dwarka, spread over an area of 39,000 sq.ft. with its own advanced manufacturing and detecting system, including a laboratory for testing bus air-conditioners.
Haiger’s sales network is ably backed by fully-equipped service centers all over the country. The company has nearly 40 service centers located across major highways, backed by a 24×7 Haiger Helpline to ensure easier access for customers at all times.