Fieldmarshal eyes market for mini tractors

India's leading diesel engine manufacturing firm Fieldmarshal, has forayed into the mini tractor segment.

The company has also entered the highly-competitive three-wheeler manufacturing segment. Fieldmarshal has been negotiating with Jharkhand state for the supply of 1000 tractors.

A mini tractor with multi-utility applications for the farmers was the latest from the stable of the company. The company claimed that it was a pioneer in addressing requirements of farmers.

"The mini tractor was the result of the feedback received from the end-users of our various products; mainly farmers" claimed Deepak Patel, marketing director of the company.

The company has a very extensive marketing network comprising of 2,200 distribution outlets along with 21 distributors in the country and 36 outlets abroad, which was how they realised the need of a mini tractor in rural area.

Agriculture requires multiple applications like tilling land, pumping out water using the engine of tractor, ploughing land, post-harvest transportation, explained SS Jogelaker, president of the company.

Large tractors in India had capacity of 25 hp to 75 hp, with most tractors being in the 25 hp-35 hp range.The applications by themselves required only 12 hp-15 hp each.

The Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI) located at Durgapur in West Bengal had recommended in a survey that there was a need of tractors with lesser capacity.

It was then that the company decided to rollout three mini-tractors of 9.5 hp, 12 hp and 15 hp, Jogelakar said. Fieldmarshal offers slow speed Lister type diesel engines, high speed diesel engines, electrically operated motors, pump-sets, gensets, marine engines, organic fertilisers, engine oils, power pack, etc.

The ISO 9002 certified unit of Fieldmarshal was being sold well overseas.

The cost factor in purchase of tractors was a major factor behind its launch. Big tractors generally cost Rs 3-4 lakh while, a mini-tractor costs Rs 1.5 lakh.

The Government of India provides Rs 30,000 as subsidy for purchase of tractors below 30 hp capacity through the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).

"Financial institutions also provide subsidised loans for the same, which help farmers, if they decide to purchase a mini-tractor," added Patel. Around 2.5 lakh tractors are manufactured in India every year.

Fieldmarshal was planning to produce 12,000 tractors per annum for first three years and later on to scale this up to 60,000 tractors per annum in another five years, said Jogelakar.

However, its core focus after that would be on establishing local assembly plants in the other states of the country to reach out customers quickly in case of sales and after sales-service and spare replacements, added Jogelakar.

Talking on the initial market response received for the mini tractor, Dipak Patel said, "Currently, we are hardly able to cater the domestic requirement as far as demand in Gujarat state and Saurashtra belt is concerned."

Jharkhand's agriculture minister Sadanand Bokhta recently visited the Fieldmarshal plant and personally drove and tested mini-tractor on the farms and fields. The minister was satisfied with the product and the company was looking at a major order of at least 1,000 tractors from the state of Jharkhand itself, added Patel.

The Jharkhand state government was planning to provide power-tillers to the farmers at subsidised cost, he claimed.

Power tillers had capacity of 8hp-10hp and cost around Rs 85,000 to Rs 1 lakh.

Fieldmarshal's distributor in Jharkhand recently made a detailed presentation on its mini-tractors to the state government, highlighting their multi-utility capability despite marginally higher cost.

Jharkhand government officials were impressed enough to visit the plant at Rajkot, Jogelakar claimed.

As far as the quality of product was concerned, Jogelekar said the mini tractor had cleared all testing conditions of Central Farm Machinery Training & Testing Institute under the ministry of agriculture of India located at Budhni near Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh.

The recognition process with Nabard and Regional Transportation Offices [RTOs] across the country had also been completed.

In terms of fuel efficiency, the mini tractor offered advantages, he added. A big tractor used 3.5 litres of fuel to accomplish a particular task for which a mini tractor consumes only 1 litre of fuel to accomplish the same task," added Jogelakar.

The company was also planning to launch eco-friendly models of its mini tractor in the near future, which would be operated using other fuel options.

"Currently, mini tractors consume diesel as fuel but we are concerned about the environment and so we are in the process of research and development of a model using CNG & LPG gas engines as well as a battery-operated model," said Jogelakar.

The company recently acquired 51 per cent stake in the local three-wheeler manufacturing plant of Panchnath Auto Limited (PAL).

It was also entering the automobile manufacturing segment by manufacturing PAL-Fieldmarshal brand of three-wheelers which would be mainly catering to the low-end passenger and cargo requirements, said Jogelakar. Initially, it would manufacture three models with permissible capacity of 350 kilograms, or three passengers, a 500kg-five passenger unit and a 750kg-seven passenger product. The eco-friendly versions of three-wheelers operated using CNG and LPG gas engines and the battery operated model would hit the road in the near future, he promised.

The cost of a three-wheeler would be approximately Rs 1.75 lakh to Rs 1.80 lakh.

The mini tractor with a trailor would be used for transportation and would also cost somewhere between Rs 1.45 lakh to Rs 1.50 lakh with all the subsidy and loan benefits."