Assam govt to launch vegetable vending carts in Guwahati by July

GUWAHATI: In a major intervention which will assist the government in checking the illegal cartel and middlemen in the vegetable trade, Assam government together with private parties will launch vegetable vending carts.

To start with the vegetable vending carts around 200 will be launched in Guwahati by July this year.

This project which will train up vegetable vendors is the initiative of Assam government's employment generating wing, Employment Generation mission (EGM) and NGO Sanghata Gram Unnayan Parishad (SGUP). The project is backed by Punjab National Bank.

A. K Absar Hazarika Project Director of EGM told ET, “We will scale up the number of carts to 1000 gradually. If we get good entrepreneurs we are ready to roll out this project across different areas of the state.”

Vegetables will be sourced from the contract farming fields spread in 6000 bighas. Each cart will come with an investment of around Rs 40,000. While EGM will provide Rs 12,000 subsidy the rest of the amount will be the loan component.

Nayanjyoti Bhattacharyya head of SGUP said that vegetables which will be by and large chemical free and will be sold at pre determined regulated market price.” Vendors especially the school drop outs are being trained for the purpose. We are targeting residential apartments and high rise building for this initiative.”

SCUP has done the pilot project in some localities of Guwahati. It has found that to run a cart decently it just requires support of 70 families. The average family spending on veggies per moth in several localities of Guwahati is around Rs 1500. The size of vegetable trade in Guwahati alone is between Rs 12 to 15 Crore per month.

Bhattacharyya added that they have worked out a crop calendar with Assam Agriculture University (AAU).