Status & Recent Trends of Tractor Power in Indian Agriculture

Technological innovations have had profound effect on the agriculture sector and tractorisation as backbone of farm mechanization has played a pivotal role in bringing green revolution in the country. The domestic industry made a beginning in 1961 with a total production of 880 units. Since then there has been a substantial growth in the production of tractors and it reached a level of 2,62,713 in 1999–2000. The continuous growth in tractor industry was observed till the end of 20^th century, however, the 21^st century started with the fall andin a span of three years, the industry came down to 1,68,182 tractors in 2002–03. From 2003 onwards industry started looking up again and grew slowly and steadily by 12.7 percent in 2003–04, 30.1 percent in 2004–05 and then 18.3 percent in 2005–06 in which the tractor sector ended the year at a high of 2,91,680 against 2,46,469 of the previous year.

A wide choice of competitive models, ranging from 12 to 75 Hp, is now available, to the Indian farmer. Although the most favorable tractor power segment among the farmers in present scenario is 31–40 hp which is contributing almost 50% of the total tractor industry. In the last few years, a substantial shift has been observed to 41–60 hp segment due to better products/technologies made available by multinational and global tractor manufacturers at competitive pricing, precision farm technologies and trend of cooperative farming, larger land holding and increase in revenue. The Tractor population of 41–60 hp segmenthas increased from 54,685 (22.8% of total no. of tractors in a year) in 2000–01 to 91,741 (31.5%) in 2005–06. Usage of higher hp tractors (> 60 hp) has also increased from 265 tractors in 2000–01 to 2068 in 2003–04. Such steady trends in 31–40 hp and increasing trends in 41–60 hp & above 60 hp segments has made the 21–30 hp segment, observe a downfall from 54,441 tractors (22.7% of total no. of tractors) in 2000–01 to 50,135 (17.2% of total no. of tractors) in 2005–06.

Traditionally, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are the main States for the tractor market. In the last few years, the new markets for tractors in the States of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat States are growing at a faster pace. With regard to the current state-wise performance of the tractor sector, the industry in most of the states has witnessed a double digit growth while Maharashtra tops the chart with a 97 percent growth till Sept, 2006, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat rank second with more than 50 percent growth. Even Tamil Nadu has shown an impressive performance with 35 percent growth. Owing to the agriculture having reached a saturation point, the Northern states, though having performed better than the last year, hasn't registered impressive growth as its Southern and Western counterparts. Among states in the north, Haryana tops the list with 53 percent growth followed by Rajasthan and Punjab at 39 and 24 percent respectively Bihar and MP are the only states where growth was stagnant. The export of tractors increased to 10% (30,374 tractors) of total annual sale in 2005–06 as compared to just 3% (7,449 tractors) in 2000–01.