Timken India Limited will soon start servicing helicopter bearings at its Jamshedpur plant.

The company’s managing director for India Gordon W. Robinson, who was in the city today, told The Telegraph that Timken was looking at aircraft business and taking steps to develop facilities for the same.

“We are focussing on the defence sector and trying to get orders for maintenance and servicing of helicopter gearboxes, apart from making bearings,” said Robinson during his brief stay at the Mercy Hospital in Baridih, where he had gone to donate art murals to the hospital administration.

He said the company was looking at opportunities in helicopters while the defence aviation was an area that could be tapped.

Timken’s parent company, US-based The Timken Company, manufactures helicopter gearboxes. Hence, providing the necessary servicing facility for helicopter bearings should not be difficult. Robinson also revealed that the company located at Bara is also coming up with a state-of-the-art bearing repair facility.

Though he did not spell out the quantum of investment at the new facility, he said all kinds of industrial bearings — ranging between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 1 crore — would be repaired. It will be the first-of-its-kind of bearing repair centre in the eastern region of the country.

“Several mega sector steel industries have approached us for repair of industrial bearings. The companies can save on cost as the bearings after repair will regain its original life. The new facility is a part of the company’s expansion plans,” he added.

Company officials said that the bearing refurbishing market in India was estimated at $90 million. Timken India Limited, a subsidiary of The Timken Company, set up its manufacturing facility in Jamshedpur in 1989. The company produces tapered roller bearings, catering to the heavy automobile sector and rail segments. To cater to the growing market, Timken later set up a manufacturing facility in Chennai.

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