RIL plans to spread over 2,000 acres in Karnataka

BANGALORE: Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL) contract farming juggernaut is mulling over an entry into Karnataka. The Mukesh Ambani-led RIL is looking at acquiring over 2,000 acres of farm land in Karnataka, which could emerge as one of its hubs for overseas exports in farm produce, sources said.

RIL’s plan entails acquiring a 10-acre patch in all 175 taluks and a similar holding in each of the 27 district headquarters.

This translates into the company acquiring 2,020 acres across the state, sources said. ET has learnt that RIL has recruited a vast number of agriculture graduates for this project. The salary packages are in the region of Rs 3.5 lakh per annum. Also in the pipeline are the company’s plans to set up warehouses across the state.

It must be mentioned that RlL has already unveiled ambitious contract farming plans nationwide, which would see it operating a massive fleet of cargo flights within India and overseas. For instance, from Karnataka alone it could operate about 10 cargo flights on a weekly basis, sources said. RIL is embarking on contract farming operations in states like Haryana and Maharashtra at the moment. It must be mentioned that the corporate biggies like Bharti, Godrej, ITC, Mahindra and MNCs like Pepsi have forayed into contract farming that could help doubling India’s agricultural exports to $20 billion by 2010.

The other beneficiary of this massive farmland acquisition would be Reliance Industries’ farm to fork project. Reliance Fresh stores — the first of the formats from Reliance Retail — that represent the front-end of the farm to fork project would source fresh fruits & vegetables, and to some extent even top-up grocery from these farms for their operations within Karnataka. Sources said the retail initiative would largely benefit the farmer community.