How a traditional business in Kandanchavadi has kept pace with the developments on the IT Highway

SIGT (Southern Industrial Gauges and Tools) Private Limited in Kandanchavadi is a piece of local history. One of the early manufacturing plants to have been established on Old Mahabalipuram Road, it s

SIGT (Southern Industrial Gauges and Tools) Private Limited in Kandanchavadi is a piece of local history. One of the early manufacturing plants to have been established on Old Mahabalipuram Road, it supplied a variety of machines, including tool-cutter grinders, motorised spindles and conventional rotators, for BHEL and Defence establishments. Ravi Ganesh, a director at the company and the second generation in the business, says his family started the unit in the 1960s. “The founders — B. Narayan Rao and B. Ganesh Rao— worked with SRP Tools, which they left to start a unit of their own. When they began, they ran something like a vocational centre to train employees,” says Ganesh.