How was the whole `Swaraj project conceived?
It all began in August 1965, when the government sought Russian technological and financial aid for a Rs 20-crore plant manufacturing 20,000 tractors per year. With the Green Revolution triggering large-scale tractor usage, there was a need to build sufficient indigenous capacity to meet this growing demand. There was hardly any domestic industry then; the first unit, of Eicher (Germany), was set up in 1959. Others came later: Escorts (tie-up with Ursus of Poland), Hindustan (Zetor, Czechoslovakia), TAFE (Massey Ferguson, Yugoslavia) and International (International Harvester, UK). The annual production was just 13,000 units and all of this largely CKD imports-based. Volumes were considered too low and the CKD route ensured quick money through mark-up cost-plus pricing. When, in 1969, I projected that India’s tractor market would reach 3.5 lakh units by 2010 my assessment factored in global trends regarding farm mechanisation and productivity, our landholding pattern, usage of high yie
