Why Coimbatore makes so many pumps

Visitors to our plant often ask why so many pump makers are in Coimbatore. Drive along the roads around Ganapathy, Peelamedu, Kurichi and the SIDCO estates and you will pass dozens of foundries, machine shops and winding units, all linked to pumps in some way. Here is how it came about.

The story begins with farming. The land around Coimbatore is fertile, but rainfall is moderate and uneven, and farmers depended on open wells. When electricity reached the region in the early twentieth century, there was a demand for engines and then electric pumps to lift water from those wells, and local workshops began repairing and later building them.

At the same time, the textile mills that gave Coimbatore its name as the Manchester of South India brought skilled machinists, foundries and a culture of engineering. Workshops that cast parts for spinning machines could also cast pump casings and impellers. Over the decades, small family firms grew, trained apprentices, and those apprentices started their own firms.

Today the city has a whole chain of suppliers within a few kilometres: foundries for castings, shops for stampings and shafts, winding wire, testing equipment and transport. A pump maker here can source almost everything locally, often the same day. Our own plant, which casts, machines, winds and tests under one roof, began as a small machine shop in this tradition. If you are visiting Coimbatore on business, tell us; we are glad to show dealers and engineers around the shop floor on weekday mornings.