Karnal farm tools cluster bucks the slowdown

The agricultural implements cluster at Karnal in Haryana, the largest in India, has overcome the heat of the economic meltdown. A 50-year-old cluster, with over 100 medium, small and micro units, it has not only survived the downturn but has flourished for various reasons.

The cluster is not very well organised, and the size of its annual business — about Rs 1,000 crore — is at best a rough estimate. Importantly, due to the growing support of government agencies, most units expect to grow at 30-40 per cent this year. The cluster meets a major part of the country’s requirement of power-driven and bullock-driven agri implements, such as harrow discs, tiller tynes, seed drilling machines, zero tillage levellers, agri springs and laser-guided scraper buckets. The cluster provides employment to about 5,000 persons.

The president of the Karnal Agriculture Implements Manufacturers Association, Rajender Rajpal, told Business Standard that Karnal meets about 80 per cent of the domestic market’s need for agri implements and accounts for almost 95 per cent of the export of such implements from India.

“Our business has been able to withstand the impact of the downturn, as food is an essential commodity and every government across the world has placed agriculture on priority for investment. We did see a crisis in the early 1980s and late 1990s due to a credit squeeze in the domestic market, but the situation is different now,” said Rajpal.