Indian Aftermarket Leader Dies – tributes flow from abroad

Indian Aftermarket Leader Dies – tributes flow from abroad

The printer aftermarket supplies industry has been shocked to learn of the passing of Nirmal Bhansali following a short illness.

Tributes are coming in from China, Korea and Germany as well as from across his homeland in India. “He was one of the pioneers of quality remanufacturing and reselling in India,” says RT Media’s regional partner, Dhruv Mahajan.

Bhansali, who set up and ran HCR and former SPINK companies in New Delhi, was one of the first Indian remanufacturers to obtain STMC accreditation and was one who continued to push the Indian aftermarket to achieve a higher level.

Despite the dot matrix printer market being much smaller than ink and toner, Bhansali realised it continued to be significant, particularly in India. He continued to import 80 million meters of ribbon every year from China, Korea and Germany, selling half of it to other aftermarket dot matrix ribbon manufacturers. He inked his own ribbons aw well with the other half. Every month, he would fill 200,000 bottles of monochrome toner and sell 80,000 OPC drums and 50,000 wiper blades to the remanufacturing industry. Bhansali felt there was still a lot of potential in the Indian ribbon market with only one percent currently being filled by remanufacturers.

Imaging Solution leader Swapan Roy declared, “the Indian aftermarket is a sadder place without him and certainly the industry has lost one of its good guys.

“He was an active participant at our Zhuhai expos and Indian roadshows,” says RT’s Director, David Gibbons. Whenever we were in India, Nirmal welcomed us with open arms ensuring we were well looked after, and we spent many late nights together discussing the industry.

All at RT Media and its extended reader, viewer and visitor family across the globe extend their heartfelt condolences to his family, colleagues and friends.

Previously, Gibbons ran a TV news story about Bhansali’s successful business on the inTouch TV News.