Bangalore

It was where the state put its precision industries. Hindustan Machine Tools was incorporated at Bengaluru on 7 February 1953, and HMT’s list of its units puts Machine Tools I there the same year.^1, 2

Engineering was already there. Wikipedia records the Indian Institute of Science from 1909 and an aircraft factory run by Hindustan Aircraft from the early 1940s, and says public-sector employment drew people to the city after independence.⁹

It was a growing capital. Wikipedia says Bangalore became the capital of the new Mysore State in 1956 and the sixth largest city in India by 1961, with 1,207,000 people.⁹

Watches began beside the machine tools. ThePrint says Nehru unveiled the first 800 watches, assembled from imported parts, at Bangalore on 28 July 1961; HMT lists its Watch Factory I at Bengaluru in 1962.^2, 5

HMT built more there over two decades: Watch Factory II in 1972, quartz analogue watches in 1981 and a specialised watch-case division in 1982.²

Wikipedia adds that the Bangalore factory was enlarged in 1975 to make mainsprings, hairsprings and shock absorbers.¹¹

HMT also made public clocks. Man’s World India and Wikipedia name its floral clock in the Lalbagh garden, which still bears the HMT name.^11, 12

Its workers lived around the works. WorldTempus says HMT employed some 3,000 women and gave its staff housing, schools, a cinema and a health club.¹⁴

Skills came from Japan. Citizen’s history records its technical assistance agreement with India of March 1960; ThePrint says 52 trainees left for Japan in July 1961 with 50 more to follow.^3, 5

Skills then went to Titan. Europa Star says the engineer B. N. Yalamalli, at the Bangalore watch factory from 1969, followed HMT’s executive director I. K. Amitha to Titan in 1985.¹⁵

Titan stayed close. Its watch factory went to Hosur, about 40 kilometres away, and The Better India and The Federal record its first showroom at Safina Plaza in Bangalore on 23 December 1987.^{16, 17, 18}

Titan’s head office is in Bangalore’s Electronic City, Wikipedia says, and Titan says its watch business has three business units in Bangalore.^6, 19

HMT’s watch company kept its registered office at Bangalore, but its factories were closed after the government’s decision of January 2016.^4, 20

In 2018 the government approved the sale or transfer of HMT Watches’ land and buildings at Bangalore and Tumkur to the space agency ISRO; in 2023 the remaining land passed to the parent company, HMT Limited.^20, 21

The memory stayed. ThePrint says the HMT Heritage Centre and Museum opened in Bengaluru in 2019, and that a queue formed at the Jalahalli showroom in August 2026 for special-edition HMT watches.⁵

A small new trade has grown. Europa Star describes Taratec making dials, hands and straps in Bengaluru, and Monochrome names the Bangalore Watch Company, founded in 2018.^7, 22