With the efficacy of its premium range of tyres, robust sales and service support, and other ground-level welfare activities including periodic health check-up and awareness camps for the local trucking community, JK Tyre is raising its stature in the trucker town.
Located on the banks of the meandering Sutlej river in Himachal Pradesh, the town of Barmana is bound to tickle memories from your recent trip to Manali. It acts as an intermediate transport centre on the Delhi-Manali highway, especially for the trucking industry in this region that borders Bilaspur and Mandi districts of the State.
The trucking community in Barmana supports a wide variety of sectors and industries that bring prosperity and livelihood in this hilly region. In particular, the ACCL cement manufacturing unit located here is fully dependent on truck transportation for the supply of raw materials and for end-product dispatches to different places across the country. Three other units located at Darlaghat (Ambuja Cements), Rajban (CCI) and Bagha (Jaypee Cements) also keep the trucking industry in this region on its toes. Naturally, multi-axle rigid bulker trucks are common in Barmana.
In addition, the region is also active with a lot of earth mining and road construction activities, especially with the expansion of the Manali highway that passes through the town, thereby proliferating the number of construction tippers plying around. Further, the truckers from Barmana take loads of fruits and vegetables grown in the Himachal region towards the neighbouring States, while trucks haul essentials like food grains to other consumables from Northern plains and far off regions.
Mr. Harvinder Singh, Chief Patron of Bilaspur District Truck Operators Transport Society (BDTS), says that the little town is home to approximately 3,500 trucks, a majority of them multi-axle bulkers. “This, along with hundreds of trucks and tippers from the neighbouring towns and regions plying in Barmana renders it as a large market for truck tyres and retreading”, he adds, while noting that tyres are the major consumable that impacts TCO of fleet operators.
“Sales of truck tyres account for about 80 per cent of my revenue”, says Mr. Jaipal Chaudhary, who is a local dealer of JK Tyre for all vehicles at Barmana. “Since this is a bulker-dominated market in which extended tyre life is aspired, retreading is also very common and a main business for us”, he adds. There are multiple retreading centres in Barmana, including those supported by JK Tyre (JK Treads) that offers life to tyres as good as new one.
JK Tyre has a market share of about 42 per cent in Barmana. According to Mr. Chaudhary, premium tyres including JH5 and JD++ for cement haulage account for maximum sales. He says the market is moving from bias to radial so that multiple retreads can be done to optimise the tyre life which is over one & a half years on an average.
Mr. Shashi Sharma is associated with JK Tyre since 1994. From 2004 he is using radial for his own fleet and became a dealer after good response for the tyres in the town. He has seen the orders grew up to 200-250 tyres per month at its peak.
“Fuel consumption reduces and mileage increases, with reduced wear and tear, by using JK Tyre. Slowly people here have started accepting radials. I believe every few months there should be campaigns to sensitise users about the advantages of JK’s tyres and its technology. The patronage with JK is only growing stronger every year”, claims Mr. Sharma. That way, he is sure that JK Tyre is growing stronger and stronger in Barmana.
With inputs from Rajesh Rajgor