ight off the bat, a few facts and figures. Taratec, which belongs to KDDL Limited, owns two dial factories, both in the Chandigarh region. Established in 1983 in Parwanoo, Dial 1 employs 360 people and manufactures 350,000 high-quality dials per year, most of which are destined for the Swiss market; Dial 2, located in Derabassi, was set up in 1996, has a 500-strong workforce and produces five million dials per year for the Indian and Swiss markets. Much further south, in Bengaluru, Taratec has two hand-making factories: Hands 1, created in 1996, which employs 300 people and manufactures 70 million standard and high-quality hands per year for India, Asia and Switzerland; and Hands 2, set up in 2012, which has 170 employees and produces three million high-quality hands per year, almost exclusively for the Swiss market.

Taratec also produces 2.3 million hour-markers and appliques destined for India and Switzerland, handled by 100 people in Parwanoo and Bengaluru; as well as 120,000 metal bracelets per year for the Swiss market in Dobbaspet, near Bengaluru, where 150 people work in a brand-new factory equipped with state-of-the-art CNC machines, which opened in 2023.

Alongside this, KDDL Packaging operates two production units: one launched in 2008 that employs 250 people in the manufacture of cardboard and plastic cases for watches, jewellery, writing instruments and accessories for the domestic market; and a second very recent entity, opened in 2024 and equipped with ultra-modern automated machinery, which employs 100 people and produces high-quality cases for both the domestic and export markets.

Completing the picture are Eigen Engineering, which manufactures stamped components and precision tools for the aerospace, electrical, automotive, electronics and defence industries, as well as the historic Swiss watch-hand manufacturer Estima, located in Grenchen, which was acquired in 2019. Together they make KDDL a true powerhouse in the world of watch industry subcontracting.

Yasho Saboo

The group is headed by the charismatic Yasho Saboo (full name Yashovardhan Saboo), Chairman and Managing Director of KDDL. Born in Chandigarh, he is the son of Rajendra K. Saboo, an industrialist from Calcutta who moved to Chandigarh in 1960 (when the city was still under construction, read our article, page 58), where he set up a machine-needle factory with German partners. He also served as president of Rotary International and became one of the city’s most prominent philanthropists. This humanistic spirit is reflected in the important social and environmental initiatives undertaken by the KDDL group.

As Yasho Saboo explains, after completing his MBA, he began working in 1980 at Groz-Beckert Saboo Limited, the joint venture which his father created with Groz-Beckert, a global leader in machine needles and precision parts for the textile industry. Then in 1983, “in the midst of the quartz crisis and without knowing anything about the field”, Yasho Saboo founded Kamla Dials and Devices Limited (now KDDL Limited), “thanks to the expertise acquired from Swiss dial manufacturer Leschot.” After investing in the necessary machinery, he began production, working first for HMT until 1987, then for Titan, which was just starting production (see our article page 34). These endeavours proved successful and “in 1995, we sought to open up new markets outside India. We purchased new machines, Swiss technicians came to train us and we gradually expanded our customer base to Switzerland and won over major Swiss brands.”

Yasho Saboo

Armed with this expertise in dial-making, “we decided to start from scratch in the production of watch hands, developing everything ourselves. It took us quite a long time – I would say five to six years – to achieve the optimal quality required, but we succeeded and again worked with Titan, who consistently supported us. One thing led to another and other brands turned to us, including Swiss companies whose trust we had earned.”

At a time when the free trade agreement between India and Switzerland comes into effect, we asked Yasho Saboo for his analysis of the situation. “The country is growing significantly, at a rate of 5% to 6% per year. But the government still needs to open the floodgates so that India, with its huge population, resources and increasingly educated youth – each year, 1.5 million qualified young engineers enter the market – can become the world’s third largest economy after the U.S. and China, perhaps ahead of Europe. There are nevertheless still huge issues, notably in terms of providing the necessary infrastructure and reducing poverty.”

Are these issues detrimental to India’s image? Saboo admits that they are: “Yes, it’s still difficult, just as it once was for Japan. However, while India sometimes produces poor-quality goods, it also produces plenty that are of superior quality! It is worth recalling that we have managed to reach the moon!”

Quality assurance

“Quality assurance is key to our success”, agreed Rahul Rawal, Taratec’s marketing manager. “Training is central to our business, especially as there are no watchmaking schools. We therefore hire young men and women, most of whom have no previous experience. We train them intensively for one or two years to educate them to the highest industry standards. Their satisfaction rate is very high, with over 95% of our qualified staff remaining loyal to us. When it comes to quality, we always comply throughout our production chain with Swiss NIHS standards, i.e. the full range of technical norms covering production and materials used, as well as various tests and controls. Each unit has its own fully equipped laboratories. Not to mention that we are formally committed to delivering everything within the required lead-times.”

Rawal went on to explain that “We also manufacture all our own tools and develop our own machines. To date, we have filed 31 patent applications in the field of watch component production technologies, including dials and hands, with 22 of these already registered. Finally – and I would like to emphasise this aspect strongly because our CEO Yasho Saboo is particularly committed to it – we are at the forefront when it comes to sustainability. Each of our units has a team dedicated to this area, whether in terms of recycling materials (22% of brass is recycled in our Dials 2 factory and 18% in our Hands 1 plant) or any other actions we undertake. We have also made significant efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and recycle all the water used in our manufacturing processes, without discharging anything into the tributaries. Since last year, we have introduced 100% recyclable materials (bamboo and starch) into our packaging production. In short, there is a long list of our actions in this domain. We also proactively participate in The Million Tree Project, which, as its name suggests, aims to plant one million trees by 2030 – and we have already planted more than 500,000.

Lastly, we are aware of our social responsibility and take part in educational programmes for young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Factory visits

It’s become something of a cliché to describe India as a land of contrasts, but arriving at Taratec’s factories, we were struck by how true this is. Having driven through simple neighbourhoods bustling with colourful crowds and along dirt roads, we pulled up in front of large gates that opened to reveal impressive buildings, immaculately manicured lawns and quiet, perfectly orderly premises.

Hands (Bengaluru)

Apart from collectors and the most discerning aficionados, few people look closely at the hands of their watch beyond their general shape. However modest they may seem, they actually require an impressive number of steps to produce. Inside the two factories, Hands 1 and Hands 2, nearly 300 people are kept busy manufacturing, machining and polishing nearly 75 million hands per year, not to mention millions of appliques and hour-markers.

Without going into all the details of the different phases, operations begin with cutting holes in strips of laminated metal (including brass, bronze and aluminium alloys) measuring between 0.1 and 0.3mm thick, to enable precise positioning in the following stages. The hands themselves are then cut out and glued onto supports to prepare them for diamond cutting to give them a flat or rounded, faceted or grooved surface. Once removed from these supports, they are then washed, dried and electroplated (nickel plating, gold plating or rhodium plating). They occasionally need to be straightened by hand, while some are also hand-coated with Luminova, then fitted into the movement and meticulously checked one by one.

This entire chain of processes alternates between computer numerical controlled (CNC) and entirely manually-performed stages.

Dials (Chandigarh)

Taratec’s dial-making operations are split between two factories: Dial 1 in Parwanoo and Dial 2 in Derabassi, not far from Chandigarh. Established in 1983, Dial 1 employs 350 people producing 350,000 high-end dials per year, mainly for export, for around 50 customers, 70% of whom are Swiss brands, 15% from the rest of Europe (mainly Germany) and the remainder from the domestic market.

Located not far from Dial 1, the Dial 2 unit, founded in 1996, employs 540 people who produce five million dials per year, primarily for the domestic market. Each of these entities is a profit centre in its own right, while working in close synergy with the hand-production units in order to offer complete and joint solutions. As the managers of these two units pointed out, “most brands are paying greater attention to dials, their quality and their originality. We are going through a somewhat complex but interesting period because, on the one hand, order volumes are falling slightly and we are looking for new customers, but on the other hand, storytelling around dials is becoming increasingly important. We therefore work in close collaboration with designers and participate in trade shows, such as the EPHJ in Geneva and Inhorgenta in Munich, and even won the prestigious Red Dot Award three years ago.”

As part of this drive to offer customers different and even more elaborate dial designs, Taratec is bringing in new techniques and even artistic crafts. These include not only the use of lasers to work on both textures and colours, but also the crafting of stone dials (when it comes to working with precious and semi-precious stones, India not only has a very long artistic tradition – one need only think of Jaipur’s worldwide reputation in this field – but is also a major supplier of both types).

In addition, a hand-guilloché workshop has recently been set up, where artisans are already being trained to master this difficult art, along with an enamelling studio where, under a jeweller’s guidance, women artisans are being trained in techniques such as cloisonné, champlevé and flinqué.

Getting back to industrial dial production, both Dial 1, dedicated to superior-quality dials, and Dial 2, turning out larger volumes, are highly integrated, meaning each of the numerous stages of dial production are fully mastered there – including the delicate manufacture of hour-markers and logos.

Again without going into the details of all the production stages, divided between machine-based and strictly manual operations, the first main phase involves mechanical operations, starting with stamping, carried out in three to four stages under a 160-metric ton Osterwalder press. Most of the bases (95%) are made of brass, stamped with a wide range of available designs or to the customer’s specifications. This is followed by fitting the dial feet, masking for two-tone dials, drilling and punching. All the stamping tools are manufactured on-site. Next come the various finishing stages: polishing, frosting, sunburst brushing; then electroplating (in baths of nickel, shiny nickel, various types of blue or black gold, etc., all checked daily by the chemistry laboratory). Finally, after individual inspection of each component, treatment and plasma cleaning, it’s time for printing, using pad printing or screen printing, and fitting the hour-markers - a task that is done exclusively by hand and requires great precision. The hour-markers are also manufactured on-site.

Bracelets (Bengaluru)

Back in the Bengaluru region – in Dobbaspet to be precise – a steel bracelet manufacturing plant was inaugurated in 2023. Equipped with state-of-the-art CNC machinery (multi-axis TechnoSwiss machines) used to make both links and folding clasps, the factory employs 145 people to produce around 120,000 bracelets per year, primarily for the Swiss market. These employees are mainly involved in polishing – carried out automatically yet involving a large proportion of manual operations – and assembling the links, followed by quality control. We cannot reveal the name of the Swiss brand for which the factory was working when we visited, but the samples we were able to test confirmed the very high quality of the work performed at Dobbaspet.

As Yasho Saboo concluded: “Historically, Indian landmark products like jewellery and fabrics had a reputation for very high quality. I would love to see India regain its reputation for quality and service. We have the ability to become the best – and we have the credibility to reach that objective.”