24.02.2018

Avijit (Bobby) Mazumder 1934 - 2018

We have received the sad news of the death of Avijit ‘Bobby’ Mazumder, chairman emeritus of Indian crane and equipment company TIL, he was 83.

Bobby Mazumder joined TIL – Tractors India Ltd – in 1960 as a management trainee and sales engineer. That same year the company signed a joint venture agreement with Coles Cranes, with the first crane coming out of the Kamarhatty plant in Calcutta. two years later.

He moved up through the ranks of the company, becoming managing director in 1976. In the mid 1980s he acquired a controlling interest in the company which was the Caterpillar distributor in eastern India. During within two years the company had added Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Burma/Myanmar to its Caterpillar territory.

When Grove acquired Coles in 1985 Mazumder wasted no time in opening meetings with the Grove management, to both secure the licence agreement and more importantly extend it to include Grove cranes. This included a transfer of technology agreement for cranes under 100 tonnes in 1993.
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Bobby Mazumder

He also played a major role in a number of associations, chambers of commerce and Institute of Management. The company is still a Grove distributor, and manufacturers a range of its own cranes, having built its 5,000th unit in 2007.builds 5,000th crane
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