HMT, "Timekeepers to the Nation", has got a fresh, albeit brief, lease of life.
The Hindustan Machine Tools factory in Uttaranchal's Ranibagh started functioning on Friday in order to complete its pending order of watches, estimated to be worth Rs 1.5 crore, reported The Times of India. The company which had been incurring losses since 2000, had shut down all its units, in 2014.
This ad from 1996 for HMT watches shows the brand making a claim of "apnapan" and Indianness, as it lost ground to foreign players. Irrespective of the merits of the ad, the strategy did not work.
The iconic watch brand started manufacturing watches in 1961 in collaboration with Japan's Citizen Watches. The annual turnover of three units of the watch manufacturers for the years 1975-76 was about Rs 13 crore.
HMT ruled the Indian watch market until liberalisation opened the economy to other watch manufacturers – foreign and local. This report in the Business Standard says the company failed because it couldn't redo its designs for newer times, despite having the ability and watch models to match its contemporaries.
The watch division was an offshoot of the Hindustan Machine Tools company, started at the behest of former prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru named the first watch Janata. Workers at the factory have been protesting for a revival and some feel hopeful for their future now with reports that the watch factory will be turned into an ordinance unit.
The video below, a 1976 Films Division film, This is HMT Time, of India's first wristwatches, shows the workings of the company in its heyday. "The HMT watch factory has become a high productivity centre", the video tells us, "clean, dust proof and air conditioned, the assembly section is like a modern hospital."
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