HMT Kalamassery: The Factory That Still Makes Machines in Kochi

HMT's Kalamassery unit, officially Machine Tools IV, has been manufacturing lathes and machine tools in Kochi since 1965, and in 2014 it added a new line of work: a piece of onboard naval equipment called a Directing Gear, built for the Indian Navy. Most people driving past the factory on the Kalamassery stretch have no idea it makes either.

• When was HMT Kalamassery set up, and why?
• What does HMT Kalamassery actually make?
• Is HMT Kalamassery still operating?
• Why does HMT matter to Kochi's industrial identity?

When was HMT Kalamassery set up, and why?

HMT Limited was incorporated on 7 February 1953 by the Government of India under the Ministry of Heavy Industries, as part of a broader post-independence push to build an indigenous machine tools industry rather than import it. The company absorbed manufacturing technology through collaborations with established international machine tool makers. The Kalamassery unit, Kerala's contribution to that network, was set up in 1965 specifically to manufacture centre lathes.

What does HMT Kalamassery actually make?

The Kalamassery plant's core output has always been machine tools: centre lathes, copying lathes, flexible turning cells and CNC twin-spindle chuckers. In 1972, the plant added a Printing Machinery Division, which still makes printing machines and programmable guillotines. The 2014 move into defence manufacturing, with the Directing Gear system for the Navy, marked the unit's first step outside industrial and printing machinery into a specialised, lower-volume product line.

Is HMT Kalamassery still operating?

Yes, but not comfortably. HMT Machine Tools runs six manufacturing units nationally: Bangalore (the original "mother unit"), Kochi, two units in Hyderabad, Pinjore and Ajmer, employing roughly 2,500 people across all of them combined, and Kalamassery is still turning out the same broad families of lathes and printing machinery it has built for decades, alongside its newer defence work. The honest picture in 2026 is less rosy than the product list suggests: the unit has posted losses for three straight years, workers have staged sit-ins over unpaid salaries, and a government revival package is under discussion but has not been approved. It is a working factory, not a thriving one.

Why does HMT matter to Kochi's industrial identity?

HMT built its name on products that became household references across India: HMT watches and HMT tractors were shorthand for a certain kind of state-led industrial ambition through the 1960s to 1980s. The Kalamassery unit was never the consumer-facing part of that story, but it tracks the same arc: rather than staying big, it survived by getting smaller and more specialised, trading volume for niche work like naval components. That is arguably a more honest measure of an old public-sector factory's relevance than nostalgia for the watches. For more of Kochi's industrial backbone, see our explainers on what Cochin Shipyard builds and, for the newer end of the same city, our guide to IT life in Kakkanad. The Haila Kochi business directory lists more of the manufacturers still operating around the city.