Steel, iPhones, and Cookware: Turning Hubballi’s Manufacturing Flywheel

Chasing India’s Manufacturing Evolution: Part 2 of the 4-Part Series on Betting Big on Tier-2 and Tier-3 Manufacturing Hubs

The journey from Bangalore to Hubballi winds through Chitradurga’s rugged hills, where over 1,500 windmills stand as silent sentinels, their blades carving graceful arcs against the sky. Generating nearly 1,000 MW of clean energy, these turbines power more than the grid. They symbolize North Karnataka’s relentless drive toward progress. For travelers, they’re a fleeting marvel, a scenic blur between two cities. But for Hubballi, 200 kilometers north, they’re a beacon of a city building a manufacturing flywheel that echoes Shenzhen’s hardware revolution in spirit, if not scale.

Connected to the world by rail, road, and air, Hubballi is not chasing someone else’s blueprint. It is building a self-sustaining manufacturing ecosystem anchored in its history, geography, and people, yet inspired by a collaborative spirit.

The Steel Substrate: Hubballi’s Industrial Foundation

Hubballi’s industrial story began with textile mills, established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries under British rule. Known as “Rayara Hubli” centuries ago, and once part of the Chalukya and Adil Shahi dynasties, the city became a textile hub by the 1920s. Mills like Hubli Cotton Mills spun cotton from the surrounding belt into cloth for local and regional markets, employing thousands and instilling precision, discipline, and mechanical skill in its workforce.

By the 1990s, global competition and outdated machinery led to their decline, but the habits endured, creating a knack for adaptation and an industrial mindset that could pivot to new industries. Steel stepped into the gap, much as electronics did for Shenzhen when textiles waned.

For decades, Hubballi’s fabrication shops and casting units supplied mining, agriculture, and heavy transport. JSW Steel, a global giant, uses Hubballi as a key logistics and supply chain base. While its primary steel production occurs in nearby Vijayanagar (Bellary), it’s Hubballi operations include distribution and ancillary services. Their Vijayanagar plant uses Electric Arc Furnace technology for sustainable production, turning out 12 million tonnes of steel each year for industries ranging from automotive to construction.

Image courtesy: JSW Steel, Vijayanagar

Inside small workshops, this transition is lived every day. Second-generation machinists like Prakash M. embody it. His father tended the rhythmic clatter of textile looms. Today, Prakash calibrates CNC machines to ±5 micron tolerances for aerospace and electronics. “The mills taught us patience,” he says. “Steel taught us precision.” That adaptability has carried Hubballi from shaping tractor gears to producing 12 percent of India’s iPhone casings, stitching the city into global tech supply chains.

Image courtesy: JSW Steel, Vijayanagar

Cookware as a Catalyst: Building Supplier Depth

One of Hubballi’s most unlikely industrial engines is cookware. Shenzhen’s rise was fueled by dense supplier networks, where small factories collaborated to cut costs and speed innovation. Hubballi’s cookware cluster, led by players like Bharat Cookware and Aequs’ joint venture with Tramontina, play a similar role.

Bharat Cookware, a long-standing local manufacturer, produces affordable pressure cookers, kadais, and non-stick pans that sustain over 50 MSMEs and employ thousands. Exporting 1.2 million pieces a month to 38 countries, it keeps Hubballi’s aluminum and steel casting ecosystem thriving, and even recycles aluminum scrap from high-precision machining into cookware handles, creating a circular economy.

Aequs, based in nearby Belagavi, has supercharged this potential through the Hubballi Durable Goods Cluster (HDC), India’s first dedicated consumer durables hub. Spread over 400 acres, it produces 3 million cookware units annually, with plans to reach 5 million by 2026. In February 2025, Aequs partnered with Brazil’s Tramontina, investing ₹80 crore in a joint venture to manufacture premium cookware. This is Tramontina’s only plant outside the Americas, blending Aequs’ precision manufacturing with over a century of Brazilian design and craftsmanship. Across Hubballi and Belagavi, Aequs employs more than 5,000 people.

Image courtesy: Government of Karnataka

Connectivity: The “Valve City’s” Strategic Advantage

Hubballi’s location on the Golden Quadrilateral ensures road, rail, and air connectivity that rivals larger cities. The Shree Siddharoodha Swamiji Hubballi Junction, with the world’s longest railway platform at 1,507 meters, is Karnataka’s busiest station after Bangalore, handling 31 originating, 31 terminating, and 80 halting trains daily. The Hubballi–Pune Vande Bharat Express now connects the two cities in 8.5 hours.

The proposed Hubballi–Ankola double-line railway, spanning 167 km, will open faster access to the coast, boosting trade and tourism. Hubballi Airport (HBX) already connects to 23 cities, with cargo operations planned, while Belagavi Airport, 90 minutes away, ranks as Karnataka’s third-busiest. Road links via the Bangalore–Mumbai Economic Corridor connect Hubballi to major ports (Mangalore, Goa, Karwar, Mumbai) in 6 to 8 hours, strengthening its role as a transshipment hub, much as Shenzhen’s ports did for its own rise.

The Deshpande Effect: Hubballi’s Backbone and Vocational Engine

Image courtesy: Deshpande Foundation for Startups

Shenzhen’s maker spaces churned out technicians who fueled its factories. Hubballi’s Deshpande Foundation plays a similar role, transforming North Karnataka into a talent pipeline. Founded by Dr. Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande and Jaishree Deshpande, it has incubated 519 startups since 2018, with 40 securing direct investments in fields like agri-manufacturing and health tech. Its Sandbox Hubballi model offers prototyping labs, maker spaces, and mentorship, bridging the gap between ideas and execution, much like Shenzhen’s vocational training empowered its tech giants. Polytechnic partnerships train 20,000 students annually, equipping them with skills from lathe work to PCB assembly.

These efforts feed directly into industry. DocketRun, founded by SDMCET Dharwad alumnus and Hubballi native Ajay Kabadi, is a bootstrapped AI Video Analytics SaaS startup that serves major clients such as JSW Steel, TATA Steel, and TATA Hitachi. The company focuses on improving safety and efficiency in high-risk industrial environments by digitizing and streamlining vehicle movement, worker access, and logistics coordination inside large factory premises. By tackling real-world safety and visibility challenges in some of India’s most hazardous workplaces, DocketRun is setting new standards for operational transparency. Physics Motors, another graduate of this ecosystem, builds compact electric powertrains for two- and three-wheelers designed for India’s rugged terrain.

Pic: Team DocketRun on their annual get together.

The iPhone Gambit: Aequs’ LUMINATE Project

Aequs’ LUMINATE Project, a 400-acre consumer electronics cluster is aiming to make Hubballi a second iPhone assembly hub after Kolar. Building on its aerospace expertise of producing 4,500 unique parts monthly for Airbus, Boeing, and Safran, Aequs is diversifying into electronics and FMCG. Its Hubballi FMCG ecosystem, launched in October 2024, targets 35% of India’s market share within a 400-km radius, with incentives like 20% capital investment subsidies and 3% turnover-based rewards, echoing Shenzhen’s SEZ-driven growth.

LUMINATE’s strength lies in its feedback loops. Local startups design testing rigs, logistics firms streamline intra-cluster transport, and machining units scale precision parts. Six Tier-3 aerospace suppliers in Hubballi already produce NADCAP-certified turbine components for Rolls-Royce, making the pivot to electronics a natural progression.

The Flywheel in Motion

Hubballi’s growth is not an overnight miracle. It is a slow burn, built layer by layer. Textile mills instilled discipline. Steel forged precision. Cookware built supplier depth. Connectivity extended reach. Education and incubation fed innovation.

The windmills of Chitradurga still turn, the workshops still hum, and the city continues to write its story. I saw in Shenzhen what happens when such a flywheel gathers speed. Standing in Hubballi today, I see a city with the same quiet force, yet shaped by a distinctly Indian character.

In a world chasing Silicon Valleys, Hubballi proves that India’s hardware century might begin not in the skyscrapers of a metro, but in the workshops, railways, and dreams of a Tier-2 city, a manufacturing hub for the subcontinent built with steel and soul.