Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Umesh Chaudhry

Q1: What order book visibility do you have for the current year FY09, and what do you think you can do by way of sales and profits this year?

A: As far as FY08 is concerned, we have announced that we are declaring our audited numbers on April 28, as far as FY09 is concerned we would not be able to give any guidance at this stage. We would only be in a position to do that after the board has discussed the results, of FY08. The order book is looking very healthy. The railways had announced that they would be buying 20,000 wagons in FY09, this was against about 12,000 to 13,000 last year, so there is a very healthy order book that is picking up or is likely to pick up from the railways and we expect to be able to carry the momentum.

Q2: Our estimates throw up that you should do upwards of Rs 750 crore as your top line and about Rs 75 crore as your bottom line, the first figure was your top line target for FY09, is that a doable target?

A: I would not comment on any forward looking numbers here, but definitely we would be targeting towards meeting the analysts expectations. In the past we have been able to beat the analysts expectations and we would try to keep that track record on.

Q3: What kind of a revenue contribution do you expect to see the heavy earth mining contributing to the overall revenue growth?

A: That’s a business that has just started picking up. We took that over from Hyderabad Industries about a year and a half or two years ago, and then when we took it over, the company’s division was not doing too well, going forward we see a good momentum coming in the mining sector and we believe that we are in a very unique position in that sector because of the larger mining equipments. There are not too many players in that field, who are pre-qualified by large customers like Coal India Limited, so we are giving a lot of thrust on that sector as well. Wagons continue to remain our main core business and it did contribute to 80% of our revenues, but going forward we believe that all the other divisions like the passenger coaches and special projects will also contribute towards the company’s growth ahead.