Dunlop, the household name for tyres, is back again. This time, however, it will not be seen on the Indian roads as the factory and the company continues to remain under lock and key with loads of legal cases piled up in various courts.

Instead, the brand is hoping to sit humbly on the shelves of chemists, pharmacies and drop down menus of online platforms as the makers of N95 masks and other protective gear.

Pawan K Ruia, who owns the Dunlop brand in India, is making yet another attempt to sweat the iconic name which once ruled Indian roads. Sensing the exploding demand for face masks and other protective gear such as PPE suits during the pandemic, he has swiftly put up manufacturing lines and involved contractors to make some of the products.

Three of the units are located at Ganganagar and one is in Delhi and they are programmed to produce up to one lakh face masks, N-95 and three-ply, in a day, Ruia said this evening.

“We will retail it through shops, online platforms, apart from catering to institutional requirements,” Ruia said.

He is also exploring the export market even though India does not allow export of three-ply masks. Ruia says he has made an application to the government to export N-95 masks, which he argues is a different class of masks.

“Hopefully, the Centre will allow,” Ruia said.

He joins hundreds of other companies across the country which have jumped into the business of supplying Covid-19 protective gear as the pandemic spreads rapidly in India.

Chequered past

The road has been rocky for Dunlop and Ruia, once hailed as a takeover tycoon, when he was arrested in December 2016 by Bengal police on a complaint filed by Indian Railways for alleged embezzlement of Rs 50 crore worth of railways properties linked to Jessop & Co, the firm which he had acquired through the Centre-led divestment.

Earlier that year, the Mamata Banerjee government in Bengal had brought two bills on the floors of the Assembly to take over Dunlop and Jessop to protect the interests of the workers employed there. The bills did not receive presidential assent and Ruia, who was released on bail by the Supreme Court in May 2017, claims he still owns the two entities, which are facing winding up proceedings.

Ruia had acquired the Dunlop brand rights for India and two comatosed manufacturing units at Sahagunj in Hooghly, Bengal and Ambattur near Chennai in Tamilnadu from the family of Manu Chhabria in 2005. However, the company never got back its past glory under the new management for multiple reasons.

Defiant as ever, Ruia again spoke of starting operations at Dunlop and Jessop, a dream that he wove several times in the past 15 years.

“Life has been tough but I am still looking at the right opportunity,” he said on Monday evening. For now, it is the face mask which will keep the Dunlop brand alive in the marketplace.