Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) launched its ‘EarthMaster’ Backhoe Loader at bC India. The launch coincided with Mahindra’s official announcement of entering into the construction equipment business.

Highlighting the technical attributes of the EarthMaster, Mr.Kairas Vakharia, Business Head -Construction Equipment, M&M said, “Earth Master is powered by Mahindra’s DITEC Engine, a compact 3.3 litre engine which delivers best in its class 83 HP. The design of the DITEC engine combined with direct injection with turbo charger & intercooler delivers over 10% fuel savings per hour as compared to contemporary products. The DITEC engine is fully loaded with latest technology to minimize emissions that meets BS III norms.” The Earth Master is manufactured at Mahindra’s plant at Chakan in Pune at a state of the art plant with integrated welding, painting and assembly facilitates. The project cost of the new business is Rs.300 crores.

The EarthMaster is the only backhoe loader in India with standard joystick controls, and is also equipped with the latest generation of hydraulics, comparable to those on large crawler excavators, that allows for precise, simultaneous movements of the backhoe. The EarthMaster comes with a unique REMOTECARE ™ feature enabling its owner to keep track of the machine’s operating status using a mobile phone. In addition, EarthMaster has a cockpit that provides voice and text messages to operators related to machine functions and warnings in six different Indian languages.

In terms of customer support the EarthMaster will come with a 2-year warranty unlimited hours warranty. The company has made a dedicated sales and service network to cater to the requirements of it construction equipment customers, which will include over 200 dealer sales, service and spares parts outlets, 200+ service vans to reach customers’ construction sites, 12 area offices, one central parts warehouse, and regional parts warehouse to supply dealers and a call centre supporting nine languages.

Mr. Vakharia estimated that the backhoe loaders market size is about 25,000 units wherein M&M has installed a capacity of 200 machines per month which could be scaled up very quickly as the demand increases. The company is planning to venture into the production of other earthmoving equipment. However, he declined to give any time frame set by the company for the new products.