M & M Plans New Tractors Venture

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) plans to set up a new joint venture and a greenfield manufacturing site to boost its presence in the tractor market. The joint venture, to be formalised by March 1999, will make tractors in the 60hp and above category.

The company plans to pump Rs 500 crore into new ventures as also into product development and launches. We are planning to emerge as a quality-conscious manufacturer with global capacities, said K J Davasia, executive director and president of the companys farm equipment division.

He told Business Standard: We are looking conceptually at global operations before expanding our international operations to spread to the US, Europe, Turkey, Africa, Sri Lanka, and Australia. The company already has a presence in South Africa, the US, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

In the next two years, M&M plans to launch three new products in the 35hp and 55hp range to be followed by three more products, which will be new generation versions of the first series.

The company is toying with the idea of a third new site apart from its existing ones at Nagpur and Kandivli in Maharashtra. The new site will have a start-up capacity of 20,000 units and subsequently increase operations to 40,000 units per annum. M&M is also planning to increase capacity to 80,000 units at Kandivli and 25,000 units in Nagpur.

We are planning to introduce the latest methods, like platform concept etc, and focus on customer needs, Davasia said. We are increasing and developing our ancillary supplier base as we propose to increase our outsourcing.

The companys product development team is working on understanding customer needs and translating the same to the engineering section.