Not surprisingly for a man whose name is associated with a driving passion for new technology and finding new avenues for it, when Chandra Mohan quit his job in the Railways in the early '60s, he left it to head a R&Dteam at the CSIR's Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI). And here, with him at the helm, the team developed three prototypes of tractors, which they subjected to the heat and dust of field trials at the Budni Tractor Testing Station in Madhya Pradesh. CMERI then offered this technology for sale, but didn't find any takers.

Chandra Mohan then worked all his contacts and, in 1970, impressed the Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation (PSIDC) enough to get them to join as a co-promoter and contribute Rs 45 lakh. It took another two years to convince financial institutions such as IFCI, IDBI and ICICI to lend some funds. By 1974, Punjab Tractors Limited was ready to begin production, concentrating primarily on the lower end of the market.

The market response was impressive. The company made profits in the first year itself. That, however, wasn't good enough, as the competition too was developing a lot more models. So how was Punjab Tractors to get more models, and who was todesign them? Chandra Mohan decided to involve an old friend, now deceased, V. K. Laroia who ran a consultancy firm out of Delhi but, more importantly, also represented a US-organisation called International Executive Service Corps (IESC).

IESC is an association of retired top executives of hundreds of US firms, executives who now wish to travel around the world and provide whatever assistance they can to firms in developing countries. Essentially, an IESC volunteer will travel down from the US to an Indian firm, spend a few months with it and try and offer solutions to its problems based on his/her past experience -- the service is gratis, though the Indian host is expected to provide hospitality for the volunteer and his wife. Chandra Mohan got Laroia to send him former executives from well-known agriculture machinery firms such as John Deere.

Over a couple of years, and a few IESC volunteers later, Punjab Tractors had developed new models of tractors, at the heavy end of the market as well, at afraction of the cost that its competitors had to spend. It introduced two new models to add to its basic 26.5 horsepower (HP) engine -- a 39 HP and a 55 HP tractor. With such innovations, and an experienced R&D team in place, Chandra Mohan left Punjab Tractors well-equipped to take on the increased competition in 1977. A year after he left, in 1998, PTL sold over 49,000 tractors, making it the second-largest tractor firm in the country, second only to Mahindra & Mahindra -- that year, it had a profit of Rs 96 crore on a turnover of Rs 800 crore. Last year, its profits were Rs 125 crore on a turnover of Rs 960 crore.

While at Punjab Tractors, Chandra Mohan was asked to join the board of Punjab Scooters Limited in 1978-79, at that time in the doldrums, having wiped out its capital just the previous year. Chandra Mohan studied the company, recommended that the scooter line (PSL's mainstay) be discarded and that a complete diversification be planned. Naturally, there weren't too many takers for this, but thedogged Chandra Mohan stuck to his guns.

And examined various products such as LPG cylinders, hi-tech diesel loco components, and so on. Eventually, they settled on high quality decorative cook-and-serve hollow enamelware. `Kitchenmate' was launched in 1981 and did well enough to sustain cash expenses and the firm's survival. During a visit to the Porsche Engineering Fair in Stuttgart, Chandra Mohan discovered polyurethane and its application for seat cushions and automobile fenders and dashboards. Another Rs 80 lakh from IDBI-later, and after contracts from Maruti and Swaraj-Mazda, Punjab Scooters established its profitability as a polyurethane seat and moulding manufacturer -- later it extended this to include tractor seats and railway chair-cars. As with Punjab Tractors, Chandra Mohan left the company in 1997 -- by this time it had been paying dividends regularly for the last two years. Something unheard of in the company's 20-year history.

Will the indefatigable technocrat strike it lucky thethird-time around? Obviously only time will tell, but with his reputation for constantly scouring around for the latest technology along with a readymade niche market, the odds on his success are high.