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The inception of Eicher goes back to the year 1948, when the Goodearth Company was set-up to sell and service imported tractors in India. Slowly and steadily the company started gaining a strong hold in the Indian market. It realised that through the years it had become internally strong to undertake the manufacturing of tractors in India itself. And time had come to step forward to realise this goal. Thus was incorporated the Eicher Tractor Corporation of India Private Ltd. on April 24, 1959, a company formed in technical collaboration with the reputed Gebr. Eicher of Germany. This was a very critical phase in the company history, since the idea was not only to come out with Eicher’s first tractor, but India’s very first tractor. The consistent efforts of Eicher towards indigenous manufacture of tractors was rewarded on the 3rd day of September, 1960, when Eicher rolled out India’s first indigenously built tractor from its Faridabad factory.
Again years marked by numerous success stories and achievements passed by and on 9th February, 1965, Eicher changed its name from Eicher Tractor Corporation of India Private Ltd. to Eicher Tractors India Ltd. Around this time in the Eicher history, another jewel was added to the crown of Eicher achievements, Eicher Tractors had achieved 100% indigenisation. Now the plans were to take this company forward in many different areas of the automobile industry. As a step towards streamlining the operations of the company, Eicher Diesels Private Limited was incorporated on 4th May, 1978. The licenses to manufacture Eicher tractors was then handed over to this company by Eicher Tractors India Limited. Eicher Diesels Private Limited was constituted by merging two companies namely Continental Auto Ancillaries Limited and Eicher Farm Machinery Limited. Eicher Tractors India Limited was renamed as Eicher Goodearth Limited on 5th July, 1980. As a significant strategic move, a landmark technical collaboration agreement with Mitsubishi Motor Corporation of Japan was signed on October 4, 1982, for the manufacture of Light Commercial Vehicles in India. This resulted in the incorporation of Eicher Motors Ltd. on 14th October, 1982 which began operations in 1986. Eicher Motors Ltd. introduced its first product, the Canter, in June 1986 manufactured at its state of the art plant at Pithampur near Indore, MP. This maiden offering soon created a strong customer base for itself with a strong brand association, which lingers in the minds of customers even to this day.
The demand for this offering of Eicher was so strong that in just 37 months of operation, Eicher was rolling out its 10,001st Canter. On 30th January,1986 Eicher Diesels Private Limited was renamed to Eicher Tractors Limited. On February 2, 1990, Eicher took a decision to buy a significant percentage of equity stake in Enfield India Ltd. Enfield had a strong presence in the market with its legendary product, The Bullet. This gave Eicher an entry into the prominent motorcycle industry. Success stories were now becoming a way of life at Eicher. Again in 1991, Eicher decided on another venture.
This one was far different from its other ventures of the past. The decision was to enter into the Consulting business. A serious study was undertaken and after a lot of planning The Eicher Consultancy Services, referred to as ECS Limited today, was incorporated on 2nd December, 1991. Coinciding with this was another extremely significant decision, Eicher Tractors Limited took over Ramon and Demm (incorporated in 1964) who are the makers of the famed Demm gears. A sick unit at that time, Eicher took over Ramon & Demm Ltd. and amalgamated it into Eicher Tractors Limited for the purpose of RDL’s rehabilitation pursuant to The Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction’s (BIFR’s) order dated June 2, 1992. Slowly under the Eicher wings, Eicher Demm started picking up. On August 24, 1993, Eicher increased its equity holding in Enfield India and became a majority stake holder. Eicher had under its wings five separate business: Tractors, Commercial Vehicles, Motorcycles, Gears and Consultancy, which were being successfully managed. 2 years later, on March 9, 1994, another company by the name Eicher International Limited was formed. This was for the purpose of catering to the international market.
The products manufactured by the Eicher group were exported to the markets abroad through this company which consistently grew to establish itself prominently in the markets abroad. In 1996, Eicher Tractors Limited (which consisted of Tractors and Gears businesses) was merged into Royal Enfield Motors to form the Group company: Eicher Limited which today co-exists with its other counterparts Eicher Motors Ltd and ECS Limited as part of the Eicher Group.
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