Tega: where's the wear?

• Position: NEW BIZ STARTUP - Tega Industries

When an Indian mining supplier wanted to establish a foothold in the Canadian mining sector, Sudbury was the place to start.

The city had been on Tega Industries' radar screen for some time, beginning in 2001, when the Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) manufacturer of wear resistant rubber linings began sending a company representative to Canada to research the market.

Previously, a Tega executive had made contact with an Ontario government trade rep at a trade show in Dubai, which sparked the company's interest in Sudbury.

Vinay Grover, now Tega's Sudbury-based manager of Canadian operations, spent months on the Internet familiarizing himself with Canada's mining industry and checked out Greater Sudbury's Web site before beginning an e-mail dialogue with the Greater Sudbury Development Corp.

In first focusing on Eastern Canada, the company narrowed its scope to Northern Ontario and northwestern Quebec, where most of its potential customers are, and decided on Sudbury--home to mining giants Falcon-bridge and Inco--as a base.

Tega specializes in wear-resistant rubber and polyurethane lining for grinding mills, screening media and linings for bins, silos, hoppers and conveyance systems.

The linings are effective in absorbing the impact of ore in grinding and material handling applications, lasting...