Board gets mandate to flavour up 5 spices parks
The Spices Board has got the mandate from the commerce ministry to act as nodal agency for setting up five spice parks, which were recently spelt out by minister of state for commerce Jairam Ramesh.
By Ratna Ganguli, TNN |
KOLKATA: The Spices Board has got the mandate from the commerce ministry to act as nodal agency for setting up five spice parks, which were recently spelt out by minister of state for commerce Jairam Ramesh. As per the ministry's plan, a spice park for turmeric will come up at its bustling marketing hub at Erode (Tamil Nadu), two parks will be set up at Idukki (Kerala) for small cardamom and black pepper and one each for mint in Lucknow and chilli at Guntur (Andhra Pradesh).
A ministry official said thrusts of the parks are to promote certified organic spices and create hubs for producing safe spices and spice products which are to be free from traces of chemical pesticide residues and other contamination. Strict quality control for designated spices will be pursued by these parks in sync with the growing concern on food safety in India and abroad.
Common infrastructure with state-of-the-art machinery for cleaning, grinding, grading, sorting, packing and warehousing facilities will be put in place in these parks. This will facilitate farmers to market cleaned spices to exporters as well as to institutions, which in turn will enable them to fetch better prices for their produce.
Land for the parks is slated from state governments, which have agreed to associate with the Spices Board to promote value-added processing of spices grown there. Individual entrepreneurs will be provided adequate land within the park complex for setting up value-added processing units for direct spice export from the park. Units coming up in the parks will be provided 33% grant on the cost of plant and machinery. For securing organic/quality certification subject to a ceiling of Rs 1 crore will be provided to each exporter from the parks under the 11th Plan.
Units in the park will be encouraged to go in for contract farming. Introduction of solar polyhouses for drying and steam sterilisation will also be aggressively promoted by these parks to ensure production of contamination-free organic spices. With this, India may emerge as an assured supplier of the entire range of certified organic spices in the next five years, said the official.
A ministry official said thrusts of the parks are to promote certified organic spices and create hubs for producing safe spices and spice products which are to be free from traces of chemical pesticide residues and other contamination. Strict quality control for designated spices will be pursued by these parks in sync with the growing concern on food safety in India and abroad.
Common infrastructure with state-of-the-art machinery for cleaning, grinding, grading, sorting, packing and warehousing facilities will be put in place in these parks. This will facilitate farmers to market cleaned spices to exporters as well as to institutions, which in turn will enable them to fetch better prices for their produce.
Land for the parks is slated from state governments, which have agreed to associate with the Spices Board to promote value-added processing of spices grown there. Individual entrepreneurs will be provided adequate land within the park complex for setting up value-added processing units for direct spice export from the park. Units coming up in the parks will be provided 33% grant on the cost of plant and machinery. For securing organic/quality certification subject to a ceiling of Rs 1 crore will be provided to each exporter from the parks under the 11th Plan.
Units in the park will be encouraged to go in for contract farming. Introduction of solar polyhouses for drying and steam sterilisation will also be aggressively promoted by these parks to ensure production of contamination-free organic spices. With this, India may emerge as an assured supplier of the entire range of certified organic spices in the next five years, said the official.
Too busy to trade in stocks? Invest in Mutual Funds with ET Money!
Bookmark or read stories offline -
Download ET Markets APP
Download ET Markets APP
ADVERTISEMENT
