The five-day long Asian Machine Tool Exhibition (Amtex 2008) organised at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi concluded in a mixed response here on Wednesday. Touted as the subcontinent's biggest machine show, the event turned out to be poorly organised as some of the exhibitors complained of poor logistics and inadequate planning.
 
MS Divakara, country manager Renishaw, who participated in the show, said the numbers of visitors were far less this time. "This means the message didn't pass on to the industry people. We came all the way from Bangalore expecting 250 trade enquiries but what we got in return was less than 125. There was a complete lack of layout planning and visitors' management. Visitors didn't know where to find which product," said Divakara in an exasperated tone.
 
In fact, the Renishaw engineers had to wait three days for compressed air to make their machines operational. "We wasted valuable initial days and could not display our products," said Divakara.
 
Divakara's disappointment was shared by another Bangalore-based company Igus Bearings. "The response was not encouraging; it was the organiser's responsibility to make sure that people who participate in the show get value for their money. Our expectation was a modest 250-300 business enquiry per day and we received only 50 leads," said Pritam Shah of Igus Bearings.
 
The show was organised on a large scale covering Hall numbers 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14 of Pragati Maidan. Most of the participants who put up their exhibits on show complained of lack of co-ordination between various halls. There were no proper navigational maps to guide people to reach the products they were looking for. Many visitors had to leave the venue without finding the products as it was displayed in some other hall.
 
Magal Engineering, which participated in the Amtex for the fourth consecutive time had some suggestions for the organisers. "The event should be organised during festival or holidays time so that more people and exhibitors could come and attend it. For exhibitors who come from different parts of the country, it's a huge loss of five productive days," said Shivkumar of Magal Engineering.
 
Shivkumar felt that the exhibition should have more technical discussions sessions. This will, he felt, help in increasing awareness about the products. The other impediment to the show was large number of stalls, which had become unmanageable.
 
Exhibitors also complaint of paucity of manoeuvring space on the first day. "There was a complete logjam on the first day when we were trying to move in our huge machine to the venue. We waited from 2.00 am to 7.00 am just to find ourselves a place in the show," said Shivkumar.
 
The exhibitors were allotted stalls just 48 hours before the inauguration of the show which worsened their problems. "The organisers should allot stalls at least three to four days before the show begins as installation of machine takes time," said Shivkumar.
 
Triune Exhibitors, who organised the show, had their own explanation. "As the venue was occupied by Defence show earlier we were handed over the venue much later. We got the possession only on February 20 which led to late allotment of stalls." said Manish Chaturvedi of Triune Exhibitors.
 
Catering to the business needs of machine and tools industry, the show was attended by manufacturers, suppliers and buyers from various parts of the country and abroad.
 
This year however, the show received a lukewarm response despite the fact that it was organised in Delhi and the organiser had hired a larger area for the show. "This time, the show was attended by 300 participants 40,000 business visitors," said Manish.
 
But Amtex 2008 had its silver lining too. There were some exhibitors who were able to generate good enquiries and were seen visibly satisfied with the response. This was true for exhibitors who came from other countries and those who were based in Delhi and NCR region. For example Nicholas Chen of GTEN, a ball screw company of Taiwan was ecstatic with the response he received from Indian buyers.
 
"We never thought we will be doing so well. We were able to generate a business of about US$ 30,000 during the five days and are looking for more enquiries to mature," said Nicholas. He said that India was the right destination as his products were competitively priced with the Indian counterparts.
 
For GL Gulati of Dropco Multilub System, a Faridabad-based company, the response was encouraging as he was able to generate on-the-spot enquiries. "This time around, the number of visitors coming to the show was far less but whoever came they seemed to be genuinely interested in knowing and buying the products," said Gulati.