Industry Engineering Founder Government of India | Headquarters Bengaluru Founded 1953 | |
 | ||
Type Public Sector Undertaking Key people Girish Kumar(Chairman and managing director) Products Machine tools, printing machines, tractors, bearings, watches. Website HMT Limited
HMT Watches Stock price HMT (NSE) ₹ 38.10 +0.80 (+2.14%)14 Mar, 9:15 AM IST - Disclaimer Subsidiaries Praga Tools, HMT Chinar Watches Ltd. | ||
HMT Limited, formerly Hindustan Machine Tools Limited, is a state-owned manufacturing company under the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises in India. The company mainly manufactures industrial machines and tools with a work force of 2,806 under its six manufacturing units situated at Bangalore (Mother unit), Kochi, Hyderabad(2 units), Pinjore and Ajmer To back up sales and service HMT Machine Tool marketing is spread across India serving Defence, Government, Private manufacturing Industries and Educational
Contents
and Institutions.
History
Hindustan Machine Tools was incorporated in 1953 by the Government of India as a machine tool manufacturing company. Over the years diversified into watches, tractors, printing machinery, metal forming presses, die casting & plastic processing machinery, CNC systems & bearings. HMT is headquartered at Bengaluru ( Bangalore ). Successful technology absorption in all product groups through collaborations with world-renowned manufacturers and further strengthened by continuous in-house R&D. Today, HMT comprises six subsidiaries under the ambit of a holding company, which also manages the tractors business directly.
HMT Limited took over Praga Tools Limited as one of its subsidiaries 1988. Praga Tools Limited was established in May 1943 as Praga Tools Corporation Limited to manufacture machine tools with its headquarters at Secunderabad. It was renamed as Praga Tools Limited in 1963. It is mainly involved in manufacture of machine tools including CNC machines.
Watch division
In the year 1961, HMT set up a watch manufacturing Unit at Bangalore in collaboration with M/s Citizen Watch Co., Japan. The first batch of Hand Wound Wrist Watches manufactured at this factory was released by the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The most popular mechanical hand-wound watch is HMT Janata. There are also other mechanical watches like HMT Pilot, HMT Jhalak (Semi Skeletal), HMT Sona, HMT Braille.
In 1972, HMT expanded its watch manufacturing capacity with a set up alongside the Bangalore Factory to manufacture additional watches. In 1975, Watch factory at Bangalore was further expanded to manufacture Main Spring, Hair spring and Shock absorber components.
HMT set up additional manufacturing facilities to produce watch components sets at Tumkur and Ranibagh in the year 1978 and 1985 respectively. Watch factory at Tumkur was partially converted to manufacture Quartz Analog Watches in collaboration with M/S Citizen Watch Co, Japan. To cater to the Niche market, a specialised watch case manufacturing facility was set up at Bangalore in 1983.
Since 1985, HMT Watches has been involved in making Floral Clocks, Solar Clocks, International Clocks and Tower Clocks, most popular among them being the Garden clock in Bangalore. In the year 2000, HMT Watch Business group was re-structured as HMT Watches Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of HMT Limited. In September 2014, the Government of India decided to shut down HMT operations in a phased manner.
As of September 2016, HMT Watches Ltd. and HMT Chinar Watches Ltd. have been shut down.
Operating units
HMT Limited has 18 manufacturing units.The constituent subsidiaries are given below while the holding company retains the tractors business group.
HMT's tractor business commenced its operations in 1971 in technical collaboration with M/s MOTOKOV, Czechoslovakia. HMT started the operation with the manufacture of 25 HP tractor at the manufacturing plant in Pinjore, Haryana state. Over the years, it has developed tractors ranging from 25 HP to 75 HP.