More HMT !

 

Who are HMT?

HMT stands for Hindustan Machine Tools. The company is owned by the Government of India. HMT was entrusted with the vital task of building machine tools for the newly independent India and in 1953 the first machine tool factory was set up at Bangalore.

Then Prime Minister of India Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru believed that India was capable of manufacturing precision components and he allowed HMT to set up a watch factory at Bangalore in collaboration with M/s Citizen Watch Co., Japan in 1961. In July of 1961, one hundred employees of HMT Watches went to the Citizen factory in Tokyo and learned every aspect of manufacturing watches for one year. Upon their return, employees of Citizen Watch Company spent a year in India assisting with the setup of manufacturing. Production of watches began in 1962, with first batch released by then Prime Minister Nehru.

Then Prime Minister of India Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru releasing the first batch of hand wound wrist watches.

Headquartered in Bangalore, the 60-year-old HMT — for several decades the celebrated timekeeper of India, and a powerful home-grown manufacturer of capital goods — was severely hit by the new policy and business regime post-1991. In 2000, HMT was broken into five subsidiary companies, HMT Ltd. (which controls the Pinjore tractor plant), HMT Machine Tools, HMT Watches Ltd., HMT Chinar Ltd., HMT Bearings and HMT (International) Ltd. This was primarily done to give autonomy to the subsidiaries and to leverage the company’s experience and skills through product diversification.

Since when are they making Watches?

HMT began manufacturing mechanical movements under license from Citizen. At its peak, HMT manufactured watches in three factories and had a specialized watch case division in Bangalore. HMT has produced over 110 million watches since the 1960s; it expanded its production facilities with two additional factories, one in Tumkur, near Bangalore, and another in Ranibagh in Northern India.

Some of the most popular models like Janata, Sona, and Pilot are powered by hand-wound Caliber HMT 020, now rebranded as HMT 0231. 020 was the older HMT designation for the basic handwind movement when the movement tooling setup at Watch Factory-1 (Bangalore) was being used. Around 1985 the 020 was being manufactured with new tooling at Ranibagh in northern India and the movement was designated 0231. HMT did away with finer cosmetic finishing of the movement components to cut costs.

          The Citizen 0201 movement. Image credit Christoph Lorenz

          The HMT 020 Movement. Image credit Christoph Lorenz

In terms of quality, these HMT movements are pretty well made, and the difference between the Citizen and HMT movements are just a few details, such as lack of decoration or simpler jewel bushes. The HMT 020 is a mens' size handwound movement with 17 jewels and a large Glucydur balance, which is beared in two Citizen Parashock protections. It is constructed in a traditional way with a direct driven center second and a center minute wheel. There are a few variations of this basic movement. The 020/0231 is the basic handwind with centre seconds (HMT Pilot, Janata, Kohinoor etc.), 0232 is another handwind movement but without centre seconds (HMT Ankit), 0233 with offset seconds (HMT Kaushal and the TBC-OC pocket watch), 1809 with centre seconds and non quickset date (HMT Tareeq and Ravi). The 0203 and its variants are still made 100% in house and are the mainstay mechanical movements for HMT. 

That is so cool! Are they still making watches?

As of today HMT is still making their handwind movements completely in house, and watches are still being produced albeit at a much slower rate and most of their models have become difficult to track and connoisseurs try to bag the rare models as they come up for sale.

HMT Automatics basically used the Miyota 6500 movement, until very recently, but the tools which were used to produce these movements got old, instead of investing in new tools HMT decided to import the Miyota 8205 movement and redesign the older watches to fit the 8205 movement. The 8205 movement is not a drop in replacement. The watches with 6500 movements will continue to be sold till stocks last but they are not being produced anymore.

The Kedar on the left uses the Miyota 6500 built completely in house and the Kedar Premium, one of the newer models, uses the imported Miyota 8205.

They have a website, but I found that it is rarely updated. The models on the site differ drastically from the range that is offered.

By the way, did you know they make skeleton watches too ? Here is a snap of their skeleton automatic watch, which you can pick up for Rs 9000/-

 

I bet that’s the cheapest skeleton automatic you can buy brand new in India. And man, it was cool to see the dials behind churning !

And they do make chronograph’s too. Here are the two chronographs I saw on display, which are priced at Rs 6000/-. And yep, all the dials work.

The chronographs and skeletons are not available on the HMT website.

 

Here are some more shots of the display case and from their latest catalogue: