Kirloskar Group flagship firm Kirloskar Pneumatic Company, which more than doubled its net income in the March quarter, has begun the new fiscal on a strong note with a close to 30 per cent jump in order book at over Rs 900 crore. The Pune-based firm offers engineering products to oil & gas, steel, cement, food & beverage, the Railways, the Defence and Marine sectors. It had an order book of Rs 700 crore at the beginning of FY21.

"We opened the new fiscal with an order book of over Rs 900 crore, campared to Rs 700 crore in the beginning of FY21. Business prospects, therefore, are good even in the current pandemic situation," managing director K Srinivasan told on Monday.

Amid a massive spike in COVID-19 cases, he said "we will have similar number for the current fiscal if not better, given that the opening order board is better than that of the previous year".

Over the weekend the company had reported a net income of Rs 50.32 crore in the March quarter, up from Rs 24.03 crore a year ago, on an income of a little over Rs 415 crore, up from Rs 227.1 crore a year ago.

For the full year, its revenue inched lower to Rs 823 crore from Rs 829 crore the year-ago period, but net income rose to Rs 63.84 crore from Rs 53.5 crore.

On capex plans for the new year, Srinivasan said the broad has approved Rs 50 crore, but pointed out this is much higher than the Rs 7 crore it had spent in capex last fiscal.

The company has very low leverage and sits on a cash and cash equivalent, including short-term investments, of Rs 210 crore as of March, up from Rs 133 crore in the previous year.

He said the order book growth is led by its main business of air compression, refrigeration and gas compression. Execution was enhanced in Q4 of FY21 with improved supply chain performance.

In FY21 the transmission segment did poorly on account of low orders from the Railway and also suspension of even these orders already given in March.