The Deputy Governor of Kano State His Excellency Professor Hafiz Abubakar and the Kano delegation currently on an official visit to Mumbai in India today the Mahindra Tractor Factory in Nagpur, central India.
The team was received by the head of Mahindra Tractor Production Plant in Nagpur Mr Ashutosh Tirphati and his management team who did a presentation on the overall activities of the factory, before taking the team on a tour of the factory.
The Mahindra Tractor company is the biggest tractor manufacturing plant in Asia which has a capacity of producing about 600 tractors daily, with quality control from start to finish and has received the highest award of Denim. The factory was established in 1970 and manufactures tractors with capacity ranging from 15 Horse power upto 60 horse power.
It will be recalled that Kano State Government is in talks with Mahindra Group for an agreement for a scheme to distribute 200 tractors in partnership with All Farmers Association of Nigeria AFAN and Tractor Owners and Hiring Facility Association of Nigeria TOHFAN, on a loan basis. The farmers are expected to pay 20% while bank will pay the remaining 80% which the farmers will pay back in a period of 3-4 years.
Nigeria needs between 73,000 to 88,000 tractors per annum, to cultivate about 31 Million hectares of land per annum, and as of now the actual number of tractors is very minimal.
Some of the members in the delegation include the state commissioner for agriculture and natural resources Hon Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, MD KASCO, SSA Mechanization, Perm Sec Cabinet Office AGS, state chairman of AFAN and national chairman of TOHFAN, and others.
Salihu Tanko Yakasai
DG Media & Communications
Government House Kano
November 8, 2017
