Agro equipment factory set up at Gummidipoondi

Chennai: To cash in on the dearth of labour in the farm sector and, as a result, increasing mechanisation, the Rs 1,350-crore Greaves Cotton group is planning to introduce more agro equipment, including tractors and tea pluckers, in the next two to three years.

To start with, the company may import tractors as SKD kits from China and assemble and market here.

Inaugurating a new manufacturing facility for agro equipment at Gummidipoondi, near here, the company’s Managing Director and CEO, Mr P. Sachdev, said the company’s plan is to introduce modern machinery that will help farmers enhance productivity at “affordable price points”.

According to him, the new plant will produce petrol/kerosene engines and other products which were hitherto being rolled out from its Thoraipakkam facility in Chennai.

The new plant, set up in four acres at an investment of Rs 15 crore, will also manufacture portable gensets (900 VA to 2800 VA) apart from petrol/kerosene pumpsets (1 hp to 5 hp). It has a capacity to produce one lakh engines a year. Greaves Cotton hopes to export at least 10 per cent of these products to Sri Lanka and countries in Africa and West Asia. “We are targeting to generate at least Rs 150 crore a year from the new facility,” he said.

It recently launched a range of agri equipment such as brush cutters, roto tilling machines, reapers, harvester and rice planters. “All these products are targeted at small and medium farmers,” said Mr Sachdev.