A Centre of Excellence for foundries, to be set up at ₹26.5 crore in the first phase by the Foundries Development Foundation (FDF) in Coimbatore, will be operational in 15 months, said the office-bearers of the Foundation.
Chief Minister M.K. Stalin laid the foundation for the Centre of Excellence on Tuesday, and distributed ₹23.85 crore subsidy for the project. The FDF has provided 2.5 acres and will invest ₹2.65 crore.
The office-bearers of FDF, R. Saravanan and C. Velumani, told The Hindu on Wednesday that the centre will have a full-fledged laboratory, three dimensional printing facility, a sand reclamation plant, and training centre. These facilities will be available to the foundries in Coimbatore at affordable costs.
By using the facilities at the Centre of Excellence, foundries in the Micro, Small and Medium-scale segment will achieve 10% to 15% savings.
The foundries will be able to test the quality of the raw materials, upskill and reskill the workers, use reclaimed sand, and improve productivity.
The average productivity of Indian foundries is just one-fourth of those in China. The MSME foundries now have access to modern machinery and facilities that will enable them to benchmark the quality and productivity with the larger ones. Almost 75% of the sand used in the foundries can be reclaimed. The capacity of the reclamation plant is 100 tonnes a day and it can be expanded.
The FDF has a customised software that is used to host a monthly auction of alloys used in the foundries. With this facility, the foundries in Coimbatore get raw materials at 8 % to 10 % lower price and materials worth ₹500 crore were auctioned in the last eight years. The FDF conducts a technology and material expo every alternate year. This helps the foundry employees and smaller foundries to know about the latest developments in their sector, they added.
Published – November 26, 2025 09:18 pm IST
