Boom time for water pump traders

Satpal Patel, owner of U Neel Sales, said “Usually, at this time of the year, business is sluggish. But due to the floods, business has been doing well, especially of the open well submersible pumps.”

Cost of repair and servicing of damaged pumps has gone up even by 30 to 40 per cent of the original cost.

S.Yugandhar of Aruna Jyothi Distributors in Thambu Chetty street, George Town, said, “Due to flood damage, servicing cost has been increased. In the last 20 – 30 days, I have had around 45 persons coming in for servicing of damaged pumps.”

He added, “Usually business would be slow but we have a lot of servicing work coming in. Sale of jet pumps and mono block pumps has not seen an increase here, but dewatering pumps have been sold a lot.”

The water pump business does well from January to August when farming is at its peak and is lull during the year-end. But, compared to usual business in these months, there has been a 10 to 30 percent growth, he said.

Jayalani, a customer, who had come for repairing a jet pump, had to shell out Rs 1500 for the work. Satpal said, “After the floods, there has been more sale of submersible pumps which cost more than the usual jet pumps. People are now mostly preparing pumps that stay in water without getting affected.”Servicing of pumps is costing owners anywhere from '1,500 to '3,000, depending on the pump type.