The Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and MSMEs, Nitin Gadkar had recently stated that Coronavirus will be no hindrance in highway projects. He believes that this pandemic could be a ‘blessing in disguise’. He has pledged to restart highway construction on a war footing basis. It is implied that to turn the crisis situation, India will need to focus on infrastructure.

In the wake of COVID-19, the migrant labour through his prestigious Highway projects can be gainfully employed.

The Construction Equipment Rental Market size exceeded USD 120 billion in 2019 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of over 4.5% between 2020 and 2026 as per a Global Market Insights report.

Prior to Covid-19, India’s infrastructure sector was growing at the fastest pace possible. The Government had announced its 5 year vision to become a USD 5 trillion dollar economy in which infrastructure was to play a great role.India has made an investment of approximately 111 lakh cr in infrastructure sector.

Now, the Director of Simplex Coke & Refractory, Vatsal Agarwal, made the valiant decision and commenced the ‘single largest buying order’ for 15 brand new piling rigs to become India’s largest Piling Rig rental company.

It is the country’s fourth largest merchant manufacturer and trader of met coke in India and currently has a market share of approximately 5% in west and north India.

Says Vatsal, “We are seeing a lot of new enquiries for rental from numerous construction companies, as post Covid-19, the rental industry has seen a massive uprise, as the purchase demand of construction equipment has reduced.Construction companies’ profit increases if they take equipment on rental as machinery part is approx. 21% of any project and cost of project comes down by approx. 10%, as they avoid machine idling cost, maintenance, depreciation etc.”

“Our equipment has RFID and GPS which provides transparency due to real-time equipment data and time logs of the rental”, added the 26 year old.

Vatsal has recently taken over a BSE listed company, Stratmont Industries Limited.

Apart from it, he has also been involved in most of the metro projects on a national basis for companies like Tata Projects, HCC, Larsen & Toubro, HPCL’s Barmer refinery with Keller India and currently executing Andaman-Nicobar Islands’ National highway project.