Exported to Europe in relatively small numbers from the late 1960s onwards, Indian-made machine tools found a gap in the market for conventional types at bargain prices. A considerable export effort was mounted by the IMTMA - the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturer's Association - from their amusingly named address at Jolly Maker Chambers, No.11, 225, Backbay Reclamation, Nariman Point, Bombay 400 020 and, by 1972, some 14 out of the 172 Association members were attending the huge machine tool exhibition in Hanover, Germany with the number steadily increasing in subsequent years.
By the 1960s India had a considerable machine tool industry and was able to manufacture - according to published lists - lathes of the centre, copying, turret, semi-automatic, automatic and vertical types; gear hobbers; a wide variety of small to large milling machines of most types; pantograph engravers; pillar, radial-arm, multi-spindle and ganged-up drilling machines; tapping machines; thread rolling machines; horizontal and fine borers; surface, cylindrical, internal, crankshaft, drill and tool & cutter grinding machines; shapers and planers; broaching, bar-straightening, lapping, die casting, welding, balancing, material-testing, moulding, welding and gas-cutting, edge-planing and cutting-off, facing & centering, spark erosion, die-sinking, plastic-injection, slotting, hacksawing, material-testing, gas-cutting, shearing and lapping machines; press brakes; power presses; bending rolls; nibblers; trimming and notching presses; universal iron-workers, carbide tool grinders, power hammers; a good range of wood-working machines, electric and pneumatic power tools and all the usually needed engineering accessories and cutters. In other words, with the Indian's usual enterprising and hard-working approach, they were almost self-sufficient in this field employing both original designs as well as copies and developments of Western equipment.
Makers and machines featured on these pages include Parmar lathes MKP-1, MKP-2, LU-34, LU-38 and Pilot 170; Energy GNM-1 and GNM2 lathes and 30/1000 and 30/6000 radial-arm drills; the "Pioneer" SA-700 and "Pioneer" HO-500 millers by Precision Engineering; the Type BPU2 miller by B.S. Machine Tool Corporation; the Type DMK shaper by D.M.Kapur & Sons; a swing-radial drilling machine Model SRD-25 by the Rocket Engineering Corp. Ltd.; the co-ordinate drill Model GR-25 and BR-234S and MH-45R pantograph engravers by Toolcraft of Bangalore; the Perfect machine Tools Co. UTG-25 universal tool and cutter grinder; Thakoor-Petler BDM/13,PDM/13, PDM/GTM-5BIP-1000, DBDM/G-20, BDM/G-20, LBDM/G-20.3 and BTDM/G-20 drilling machines; the Energy VM25 vertical miller and Energy H-150 hacksawing machine; the MMT MSD8 drill; the Pioneer M3, M4, M5, m6 and M8 nut tapping machine; the Jyothi Machinery manufacturer JCD-75 centerless grinder; the Sharda Machine Works U/100/450, U100/600 and U-127/500 cylindrical grinders; the Elmeca Works (Dharwar) Pelma 35-A and CTG carbide tipped tool grinders; the Remit Manufacturing Co. Remit tapping machine type M-10 and M-19; the Hifin Products precision flat lapping machines and the Ahura Industrial Machines Blow moulding machines.
Of course, some machines were built by subsidiaries of European and American companies, or licenced or simply copied from them, including ones by Herbert, British Oxygen, Weiler, Colchester, Harrison, Petermann, Pfauter, Liebherr, Gildmeister, Traub, Gambin, Coronat-Milon, Bridgeport, Ex-cell-O, Cridan, Heap, Landis, Harig, Jones & Shipman, WMW and Arboga, etc.