Import of Chinese construction equipment is hurting the Indian manufacturing sector, which has urged the Centre to protect it from such “unfair practices”.

The share of Chinese construction equipment is understood to have reached 22 per cent, according to Sandeep Singh, managing director of Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Company Ltd, which witnessed no growth in revenue in the first half of the year in part due to a surge in low-cost Chinese imports.

“We were looking at overall growth of 10 per cent but we are at the same level. They are restricting the growth of Indian manufacturers. The government should look at the duty structure to protect Indian industry,” Singh said.

Tata Hitachi, which has a plant at Kharagpur, is operating only 70 per cent of its capacity. The market share of the company , a joint venture between Tata Motors and Hitachi of Japan, has dropped by 5 per cent to 23 per cent.

Singh’s view was reciprocated by public sector BEML, which had exited the construction equipment business some years back before rejoining this fiscal with a niche range.

“Mining companies such as BEML are comfortable in the high end mining equipment segment. There we are able to manage the price because of the size and volume. But when it comes to construction equipment, the price difference with the Chinese is huge. And the construction sector is mostly all private companies. So, they will go with the price or leasing of equipment. So, interests of companies such as BEML have definitely been hurt,” said Shantanu Roy, chairman and managing director of BEML.

Singh and Roy were in Calcutta to attend the CII Global Mining Summit.