HMT loses race against time

It is an irony that HMT watches, which once prided themselves as timekeepers to the nation, could not keep pace with changing times and have to stop ticking away now.

The government has decided to stop production of the watches because of the huge and recurring losses incurred by the watch manufacturing unit. Last year, it lost Rs 242 crore against a revenue of Rs 11 crore.

Obviously, it is on bad times and all restructuring and reconstruction efforts, including capital infusion and other measures undertaken in the past few years, have not worked. A last attempt at revival was proposed some time ago but the UPA government was undecided on it. There is no hope of good times ahead and the NDA government has therefore taken the right decision to unwind and allow it to stop working.

But the watches had an iconic status in the country for some decades and their boast about themselves may not have been seriously contested those times. The public sector Hindustan Machine Tools started producing watches in collaboration with Citizen Watches in 1961, and soon brought out the first indigenously manufactured mechanical watches.

The effort was seen as part of the country’s post-independence industrialisation project. The watches were popular for many years. Many models like Janata and Vijay were brought out and they clicked well with the middle class, students and others. Wearing an HMT watch was even a patriotic statement for many. Indians have long been considered a people without a sense of time and of history. HMT watches perhaps gave a sense of personal time to many in a country where a new era had started.

But growing competition from private watch manufacturers and the entry of foreign quartz watches after the removal of import restrictions in the 1980s turned the tide against HMT. It could not cater to the changing tastes of people and did not adopt the kind of marketing and management practices required in a new environment. Only the fittest and those who can adapt to new circumstances survive in a climate of contest and competition.

HMT watches have gone the way of many other products like the Ambassador car which failed to move with the times.  They will evoke nostalgia for some, and many pieces will be kept as relics and reminders from the past. But looking back in time, one important lesson is that the government has no business making and selling watches or doing such other businesses. That should be remembered, going forward too.