Kolkata, Nov 11 (IANS) Battery manufacturer Exide Industries hopes to sell 250,000 batteries for tractors in 2009-10, up from 170,000 it sold last fiscal, a senior official said here Wednesday.
“Our company has 14 percent market share in this segment and the rest is (accounted for by) local unorganised manufacturers,” said Mukul Kandwal, chief business manager (Project Kisan) of Exide.

“We want to take this up to 25 percent in two years,” he told reporters on the margins of a seminar on rural marketing organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Under Project Kissan, Exide is trying to reach out to farmers through dealers.

The company now has 2,800 dealers across 14 states such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, where tractor population is very high, Kandwal said.

There are 40 lakh registered tractors in India.

“This year, we are adding close to 800 to 900 dealers on a base of 2,800 dealers that we have in the rural areas,” Khandwal said.

The company’s turnover from tractor battery sales is Rs.100 crore annually.