Mahindra’s Construction Equipment Division (MCE), part of the Mahindra Group, announced an expansion of its road construction equipment range with the launch of the brand-new RoadMaster G75 Smart Motor Grader.
Speaking on the occasion, Jalaj Gupta, Business Head, Commercial Vehicles Business Unit, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, said, “We at Mahindra are committed to provide disruptive products and services for our customers and are launching yet another product innovation in the fast-growing road construction equipment segment, the Mahindra RoadMaster G75 Smart Motor Grader. It has been designed and developed in India based on deep insights of the needs of smaller road contractors. Our aim is to help small contractors break free from sub-optimal grading practices and to upgrade them to mechanization and enable them to participate in nation building. The brand-new G75 Smart motor grader is a highly reliable machine with low owning and operating costs and will truly be their ‘Profit Ka Partner’. Our existing RoadMaster range of motor graders has already captured over 20% market share, and we are confident that G75 Smart will further strengthen our position while transforming construction of small roads in India, which constitute about 60% of country’s roads.”
The RoadMaster G75 Smart offers road contractors, liberation from compromised makeshift solution, such as manual labor and farm tractor-based graders. It is the ideal machine for spreading and grading applications for the rural, semi-rural and district roads, land development, internal housing and commercial roads. It enables small road contractors to participate in projects with grading needs for government flagship programs as Smart City, as well as PMGSY roads. The RoadMaster G75 Smart provides small contractors affordable uncompromised mechanization and an opportunity to deploy a registered motor grader in the smaller projects which was not possible hitherto with the conventional graders. Also, it will help improve the quality and longevity of work and quicker turnaround of projects.
The RoadMaster G75 Smart is powered by a 74 HP Mahindra CRDi engine which is coupled with a 3 m (10 ft) wide blade and iMAXX telematics solution. This equipment is optimized to deliver zero compromise grading at an equipment cost marginally higher to tractor grader but still fractional as compared to conventional motor graders making it ‘Profit Ka Partner’ of small road contractors.
It comes with a one-year warranty, eliminating the customer’s anxiety when it comes to expensive repairs. This is possible due to Mahindra’s engineering and manufacturing capability, backed up by a grueling testing regime and sourcing of the best components and the simplicity of the machine design.
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“Our new G75 Smart Motor Grader is a category creator”
On the sidelines of the unveil of the Mahindra G75 Smart Motor Grader, Rajesh Rajgor spoke to Jalaj Gupta, Business Head, Commercial Vehicles Business Unit, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited
Could you tell us about the importance of the new product you have unveiled here at EXCON?
We have been quite strong in the motor grader space in India and are actually the No.2 player in the market with 20 per cent market share. This product is an extension of our commitment in the motor Grader space, especially for contractors who are getting work on the rural roads. Most other players have premium products with higher end of graders suited for National Highways and Golden Quadrilaterals. According to us, 48 per cent of the roads in the country are rural roads. If India has to be connected, it is those smaller roads where the work will need to happen.
Now when a contract is given for these rural roads, the big contractors either use the bigger machines with 120 HP, leading to a serious mismatch and a waste of resources or they hire a local contractor who either gets it done manually or uses an agricultural tractor. Now by paying few lakhs more than the agricultural tractor, the contractor can own this machine and also have higher efficiency compared to the tractor grader. Hence, we firmly believe our G75 Smart Motor Grader is a category creator. It’s going to improve the productivity of the laying down of the road compared to a frugal make-shift vehicle for many contractors.
How have you been addressing the benefit doubts that the potential buyers may have regarding the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) with respect to this vehicle?
The new vehicle comes with 74 HP and the blade is a 3-meter 10 feet one. It has a rotating angle of 50 per cent compared to an agri tractor that has 30 per cent. Blades easily accommodate between the tyres while the machine is travelling. This helps in smooth machine movement. The product is made for a particular application and it excels at its job.
While this is a product unveil, the launch will be around the festive season in winter. We are planning to seed the machine with 10 -12 customers and gain their feedback before the official launch for retail sales. Whenever you are a category creator, the first mover has to do such ground work and take potential customers under confidence and give some demo. We are confident of the end product and believe this will be extremely beneficial on rural roads. There are already two machines working as we speak and we have got data which gives us confidence that we will meet success and convince our customers with their apprehensions on total cost of ownership. By volume, we are the world’s largest tractor manufacturer too and hence we know what a tractor does and what a grader is capable of doing.
What are the other products from the Mahindra stable for the CE segment and what is your reading of the market potential?
We have an ARAI-approved RMC tipper which we offer to customers under a single invoice. The RMC is a 7 and half cu. m. one from Schwing Stetter. We have another one with 22 cu. m. on a 35-tonne tipper. We also have a new Furio LCV tipper and a fuel bowser in collaboration with Repos Energy. Along with it, we have our entire range of construction graders and two backhoe loaders. We have also displayed a Bolero Pickup and our range of engines.
We feel this is the best time for the CE segment. The Indian economy is poised for good growth, albeit with a few challenges in fuel prices and concerns over a COVID 4th wave. However, infra projects are increasing and the spend by the government – be it PM Gati Shakti, port, road and bullet train projects – look promising and all this would require backhoe loaders, graders and tippers. Our exports too are improving and as of today, 25 per cent of the CE machines we sell are exported. Our wish is that one out of 3 machines we sell should be exported. This would not only be to India-like markets but to markets all around the globe.