India Today reported that many small forging units in Pune's Pimpri - Chinchwad industrial belt, which also houses some of the biggest names in Indian manufacturing Thermax, Bajaj Auto, Force Motors and Bharat Forge etc, are facing tough times and are on the verge of closure.

Close to the Thermax compound is the 4.5 acre premises of Walia Agni Industries, a forging unit, that wears a desolate look. Walia Agni, that makes components for auto companies such as TATA Motors and Mahindra Two Wheelers, is now operating at nearly one-fourth its capacity, thanks to a squeeze in orders from the auto sector.

Mr Neeraj Walia MD, who left a lucrative mining job in Orissa to take up his family's auto spares business a few years back, and ventured into forging in 2012 after picking up the sick unit from Amforge Industries said "We are facing a closure. We had expectations of turning around the business then, but now I feel we entered it at the wrong time."

Compared to an installed capacity of 1,000 tonnes a month, the company's forging production is hardly 250 tonnes at present. Burdened by slowing demand on the one hand and high interest on bank loans and costly power on the other, Walia Agni, which has already cut staff strength to 80 from 125, may even sell some of its land to pay off debt.

Walia Agni shares its woes with hundreds other units in the INR 22,000 crore forging segment, which have either closed down or are on the verge of doing so.

Over the past 18 months years, 64 of the 400 units in the country, that employ around 93,400 people, have downed shutters. Some of the closed units include ForgeMax auto components, G Forge & Machining, Hillman Forging, Sankalp Engineering & Services and Yashraj Forging.

The rest are struggling with fewer orders, halving their total capacity to 1.7 million tonnes a year. There are around 80 units in the Pune region, comprising Pune, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Ahmadnagar and Nashik, while the rest are in Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore.