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Meet Welspun Group’s newest brainchild: Welspun Flooring. With a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility spread over 600 acre in Hyderabad, the company’s focus is to make a breakthrough in design and engineering. Mukesh Savlani, CEO, Welspun Flooring, shares more in conversation with SHRIYAL SETHUMADHAVAN.How do you view the current market for flooring? The Indian flooring market is worth Rs.300 billion. Our analysis tells us that 90 per cent of this market is new flooring and 10 per cent is renovation. Of this, Rs.150 billion comprises organised players and Rs.150 billion the unorganised segment. We are planning to venture into the segments of convenient flooring where the entire solution is designed to ensure customer convenience in terms of selecting, finalising and installing flooring. The company focuses more on modular flooring...Today, by roping in a good contractor, flooring work would take atleast a month. We are talking about getting flooring work done in less than a day. Our flooring solutions can be laid on existing tiled floors, eliminating the need for water, cement and adhesives of any kind. Flooring tiles offered by our company will lock with each other rather than locking with the floor. The thickness of the flooring is anywhere between 4 mm and 6 mm, and the customer would not mind losing that 6 mm space for the convenience obtained during installation. It is a tough call to do flooring today in India; this is why I mentioned that 90 per cent of the flooring market is new flooring and only 10 per cent is renovation. So the pain point is easy renovation and this is the area we are planning to focus on with our products. Increasing renovation and floor replacement activities in residential and commercial applications are expected to drive the industry by 2020…Today, if offices want to renovate, there are solutions available such as carpet tiles. But India does not produce carpet tiles and the entire need comes in from the US or China. We have been pitching for commercial markets and we will be producing carpet tiles in combination with our hard tiles, which also can be quickly installed like carpet tiles. Even for residential consumers, apart from renovation works happening in wallpaper and furniture, there is no choice today for flooring â€� that is where we come in.Tell us more about the Rs.11.5-billion manufacturing facility you are setting up to produce for residential, hospitality and commercial operations.This facility is located 225 km south and west of Hyderabad Airport. It is spread across a 600-acre site; we have currently occupied 100 acre. So there is scope for future expansion. In 100 acre, we are developing a facility that can cater to about 30 million sq m.In the first phase, we will start with 10 million sq m capacity.You plan to expand to Europe, the US, Australia and other Southeast Asian countries by mid-2019...This facility will be manufacturing click-and-lock tiles, carpet tiles, hospitality carpets and artificial turf grass. These four products will be handled through our distribution system in India as well as for exports. Going forward, we are anticipating a 50-50 combination of business coming in between the domestic market and exports. What growth are you targeting in the coming years?We are looking at a turnover of Rs.10 billion in the next three to four years. We have the capacities and are developing our distribution network. Hence, we are confident about achieving this number. To share your views, write in at [email protected]