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 20th century, however, the 21st 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.