Swaraj tractor Company is the first company in India which made a complete tractor in India with its own technology.
Roots of Swaraj tractors’ history were started in year 1965 when the demand for new tractors in India was increasing day by day and waiting time for farmers was very long to get their tractors because in the year 1960 the Indian government was totally dependent on foreign countries for the tractors for farming and it had not it’s own company. These foreign country companies were not able to supply proper spare parts and service to all farmers at time and India was one of the largest farming country at that time. To break the dependency on foreign companies for tractors Indian government took a decision to make tractors completely in India and this responsibility was given to Dr. Manmohan Suri in 1965 who worked in Indian railways as an engineer and director in CMERI (Central mechanical engineering and research institute).
In the beginning team wanted to equip 2 cylinder air cooled engine tractor but the result of air cooled engines was not good at that time in Punjab and team didn’t want to take any risk. CMERI had made it’s first design in year 1967 tractor and tested them for more than 1000 hours at 10% to 30% extra load in very hot environmental conditions. In year 1967 Dr. Suri designed 3 prototype models with new improvements and sent for testing to TTC Budni, PAU Ludhiana and UP agriculture University. In Ludhiana result of these tractor was very good. At HMT (Hindustan machine tools) company was manufacturing many machine parts and wanted to make a 20 to 25 hp tractor for Indian farmers and at that time Dr. Manmohan’s team had a hope to pass their project to HMT but unfortunately HMT had been ordered to produce Zetor tractors instead of Swaraj because Zetor was one of the most advance tractor manufacturing company at that time and even today also. This decision of Government broke the whole team’s faith and because of lack of financial support; launch these tractors was totally impossible at that time. Finally Dr. Suri and his team gave up and left this project in year 1969. At that time performance of these tractors was good in Punjab and near by areas then Punjab government had shown their interest in this project and wanted to occupy it. In beginning Punjab government was also afraid of taking risk but CMERI’s team had told about benefits of these designs because these tractors were totally designed according to Indian environmental conditions. Finally company had launched its model and launched other models also, here is a list of launching of years of tractors:
- Swaraj Sartaj tractor in year 1973 (1st model).
- Swaraj 724 FE tractor on 13 april, 1974.
- Swaraj 735 FE tractor in year 1975.
- Swaraj 720 FE tractor in year 1978.
- Swaraj 8100 harvester in year 1980.
- Swaraj 855 FE tractor in year 1983.
- In year 1986 company had a technical agreement with Kirloskar engine oil.
- Swaraj 733 FE and Swaraj 744 FE in year 1999.
- Swaraj 949 FE and Swaraj 843 in year 2004 company.
- Swaraj 978 FE ( 2WD & 4WD ) tractor for international marked in year 2004.
- In year 2007 Mahindra & Mahindra group acquired Swaraj company.
- Swaraj 724 orchard and Swaraj 978 FE tractor in 2007 year.
- In year 2008 XM series was introduced.
- Swaraj 735 XM in 2008.
- Swaraj 843 XM in 2009.
- Swaraj 855 XM in 2011
- Swaraj 841 XM, Swaraj 825 XM, Swaraj 744 XM tractors in year 2012.
Here is list of all Swaraj models which are made by the company from 1974 to present date:
- Swaraj 720
- Swaraj 722 FE
- Swaraj 722 Super
- Swaraj 724 FE
- Swaraj 724 XM Orchard NT
- Swaraj 724 XM orchard
- Swaraj 724 XM
- Swaraj 825 XM
- Swaraj 733 FE 2 cylinder
- Swaraj 733 FE
- Swaraj 834 XM
- Swaraj 735 FE
- Swaraj 735 XM
- Swaraj 735 FEe
- Swaraj 735 XT
- Swaraj 735 FE New
- Swaraj 939 FE
- Swaraj 742 FE
- Swaraj 742 XT
- Swaraj 744 FE
- Swaraj 855 FE
- Swaraj 855 XM