Key facts
| Figure | What it measures |
|---|---|
| ~40% | of India’s pump sets are made in Coimbatore; Gujarat makes about 35%7 |
| ~1,500 | pump makers today, down from about 3,500 a decade earlier8 |
| ~10,000 | pump sets made a day, down from about 25,0008 |
| ~70 | parts in a pump, with a Coimbatore workshop for each (2016)6 |
| ₹850 → ₹1,500 | price of a kilo of copper in Coimbatore, in six months to March 20268 |
| ₹6,000 → ₹9,000 | price of a small borewell pump over the same months8 |
| 18% | GST on pump sets since October 2021, up from 12%; makers have asked for 5%9 |
| 12% → 18% | GST on engineering job work, from 22 September 202510 |
| ₹8.50 vs ₹7 | industrial power per unit, Tamil Nadu against Gujarat (2025)7 |
| 25% → 8–9% | margins of small Coimbatore foundries (2025)7 |
| ~1–1.5% | India’s share of a world pump market of about US$90 billion; China has about half11 |
| ~50 | wet grinder makers left in Coimbatore, from several hundred; sales are 30–40% of earlier levels12 |
How it began
Power, then motors
In October 1932 the Pykara hydroelectric station in the Nilgiris began supplying power, and electricity reached the mills and farms of the Kongu belt. Farmers wanted electric pumps to lift water from their wells, and the mills needed motors.
In 1937 G. D. Naidu, who had left school in the third standard, and D. Balasundaram built the first electric motor made in India, in Coimbatore. In 1945 Naidu also set up one of India’s first polytechnic colleges in the city, and the skills of winding, casting and machining spread from there.
The wet grinder
In 1955 P. Sabapathy, an apprentice in a Coimbatore workshop, built an electric wet grinder that kept the granite stone, so the batter tasted the same, but let a motor do hours of work. Hundreds of small makers followed. The Coimbatore wet grinder became a registered GI in 2005, and by about 2015 more than 700 units were making about three of every four grinders sold in India.
In 2011 the State announced free grinders for ration-card families, and Coimbatore units won most of the orders for more than 1.85 crore machines. They expanded fast; when the scheme ended in 2015, many were left with idle capacity and turned to pumps, motors and mixers.
Seventy parts, many workshops
The same skills built the pump trade. A pump has about 70 parts, and Coimbatore grew a workshop for each: foundries for bodies and impellers, stamping and winding shops for motors, machine shops for shafts. In 2016 the city still made about 40% of India’s pumps, a trade worth about ₹5,000 crore a year, and it came to be called the pump city of India.
How the business works here
A pump set is a motor and a pump joined together. The motor needs electrical steel stampings and copper winding; the pump needs cast-iron bodies and impellers from a foundry, shafts and parts from a machine shop, then assembly and a test bench. A pump has about 70 parts, and Coimbatore has workshops for every one of them, many of them small family units with the house next door.6
Two kinds of makers draw on the same workshops. Brand makers sell through dealers, follow BIS standards and BEE star labels, and pay GST. Small assemblers sell unbranded “kit” pumps, often outside the tax net. When GST on pumps went from 12% to 18%, the unbranded share of farm pump sales rose from under 10% to almost 30%, according to a makers’ association.9
Most demand comes from farm borewells and homes. The pump itself is now only 15–20% of the cost of a full pumping system, down from nearly 30%, because pipes, cables, starter panels and valves have risen by more than 30%. That leaves the pump maker little room to pass on its own cost increases.13
Under pressure now
Metals. In the six months to March 2026 copper went from about ₹850 to ₹1,500 a kilo in Coimbatore, aluminium from ₹220 to ₹300, and steel rose 15%. Makers say local prices swung by up to 40% while world prices moved no more than 15%. In June 2026 the pump makers’ associations said pumps were still priced up to 10% below cost and announced further increases.8
Gujarat. Gujarat now makes about 35% of India’s pump sets against Coimbatore’s 40%. Its makers get raw materials and castings about 20% cheaper, partly from ship-breaking scrap, and pay ₹7 a unit for industrial power against ₹8.50 in Tamil Nadu. Small Coimbatore foundries say their margins have fallen from about 25% to 8–9%, and some makers are considering moving.7
Tax on the chain. GST on engineering job work rose from 12% to 18% from 22 September 2025. Coimbatore has about 50,000 units doing job orders, with more than five lakh workers, and many of them make parts for pump and motor makers. The hoped-for cut in GST on farm pumps did not come in the September 2025 changes.10
The wet grinder. About 50 grinder makers remain, from several hundred, and sales are 30–40% of earlier levels as more homes buy ready batter. GST on grinders has moved from 28% to 18%, to 5% in 2022 and back to 18% in June 2024, and a commercial grinder needs about 1.5 kg of copper, so makers announced a 20% price rise in March 2026.12
A costing note
In a motor, copper is the cost that moves. A commercial wet grinder takes about 1.5 kg of copper; when copper goes from ₹850 to ₹1,500 a kilo, that one input adds about ₹975 to each machine. A price list fixed for a season cannot absorb that. Keep a cost sheet for each model with copper, stampings and castings in kilos, and re-price it against the day’s metal rates before quoting a dealer or a tender.12
Job work at 18% is a cost only if the credit is lost. A registered maker who sends castings or winding out on job work can take credit for the job worker’s GST, but must track what goes out and comes back, including scrap, and file the job-work return. An unregistered assembler cannot take credit, so for him the 18% is simply part of the price. That difference is one reason the branded and “kit” pump prices drift apart.
Castings are where scrap and rejection hide. Weigh what the foundry gives against the finished weight after machining, and track rejects at the test bench by model. A cost sheet that knows its yield per kilo of metal is the only defence when a dealer asks for a discount.