Seed drill and tractor implement making unit

This unit designs, builds and sells its own tractor-drawn implements for local crops: seed-cum-fertiliser drills for soybean and tur, inter-row cultivators for cotton, and tractor-mounted sprayers. Instead of making parts for someone else, you put your own name on the finished machine.

Engineering is one of Nagpur's official signature products, based in Hingna, Butibori and other MIDC estates, but much of it is job work, making parts for companies that assemble and sell machines elsewhere. Welding and machining skills are already here, and so are sellers of steel, gearboxes and blades. The market is close by: NABARD's 2023-24 credit plan for Nagpur assesses crop loans at Rs.3250.03 crore, for kharif soybean, cotton, paddy and tur and rabi wheat and gram.

You need a shed with welding, drilling and painting set-ups, someone who knows local soils, and working capital for steel. The hard part is selling. Farmers trust known names, so you must prove your machines in real fields first, and sales bunch up just before sowing. Getting a model onto government subsidy lists usually needs a test report from an approved farm machinery testing centre, which takes time and money.

Sell through tractor dealers in Vidarbha towns, custom hiring centres (which rent machines to farmers), farmer producer organisations and demonstrations at farm fairs.