Comprehensive guides for India’s agri-business leaders.
Longform pillar playbooks — deeper than an insight, narrower than a report. Written by partners who have shipped the same work from the operating seat.
Where our insights are monthly field notes, our guides are reference documents you can hand to a team and ship against. Each is authored end-to-end by a practice partner, cites its sources, carries a last-reviewed date, and cross-links to the services we run for clients who want the playbook delivered rather than read.
ARAI / ICAT vs FMTTI: which approval does your machine actually need?
The two approval tracks Indian farm-machinery manufacturers confuse most — CMVR type-approval and FMTTI performance testing — and why you usually need both, in parallel.
CMVR type-approval (via ARAI Pune or ICAT Manesar) makes a tractor or self-propelled machine road-legal. FMTTI performance testing makes a machine eligible for SMAM and state subsidy schemes. They are different approvals for different purposes, they apply to different machine types, and for a subsidised tractor you run them as parallel workstreams. FMTTI applications go through the national Centralized Farm Machinery Performance Testing Portal — the regional institute names are nominal coverage, not a mandatory assigned centre.
BIS / FMCS certification for agricultural machinery
Where BIS certification bites for machinery and components, how the Foreign Manufacturers Certification Scheme fits, and how BIS scope interacts with subsidy eligibility.
BIS certification under Scheme I (the FMCS / ISI-mark route) applies to specific components and machines covered by Indian Standards — agricultural pumps, engines, and many bought-in parts. It is a separate track from FMTTI performance testing and from CMVR type-approval. Foreign manufacturers certify through the Foreign Manufacturers Certification Scheme. Where a component carries a mandatory BIS standard, a missing mark can block both sale and subsidy empanelment.
CMVR / TREM-IV emission norms for tractors and off-road engines
What TREM Stage IV means for tractor and engine manufacturers today, where the TREM-V trajectory is heading, and the type-approval workstreams behind both.
TREM Stage IV is the off-highway emission norm for agricultural tractors and engines, applied through AIS-137 emission test cycles and decoupled from on-road BS-VI. Tractors above ~37 kW (≈50 HP) are under TREM-IV today. A TREM-V trajectory is in draft. Emission testing runs at ARAI or ICAT in parallel with the AIS-017 type-approval cycle — it is one workstream inside the broader CMVR type-approval covered in our homologation guide.
Getting your machine empanelled under SMAM and state subsidy schemes
The manufacturer's empanelment playbook: the FMTTI test report as the gating artifact, and how each state portal consumes it.
SMAM (the Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization) is the central framework, implemented by the states. Empanelment — getting a specific make and model onto a state's approved list so farmers can claim subsidy against it — is gated by a valid FMTTI performance test report. Each state runs its own portal and rules: Punjab CRM via agrimachinerypb.com, Haryana via agriharyana.gov.in, Gujarat iKhedut 2.0 with AGR-50 model-empanelment, Tamil Nadu via the Agricultural Engineering Department, and Maharashtra's Krushi Yantrikikaran via MahaDBT. Subsidy percentages change yearly; the portals and mechanisms are stable.
Building and managing a farm-machinery dealer network in India
The channel playbook for manufacturers: appointment, territory, working capital and credit, demo and after-sales infrastructure, and the link between dealer reach and subsidy participation.
For a farm-machinery manufacturer, the dealer network is the business. This guide covers the practical channel decisions: how to appoint and structure dealers, how to design territory and avoid channel conflict, the working-capital and credit terms that actually move machines, the demo and after-sales infrastructure that drives repeat purchase, and why subsidy-scheme participation only converts into sales through a dealer who can handle the claim.