Rubber Board merger with Cashew Corp opposed

The government's decision to merge the Rubber Board with the Karnataka Cashew Development Corporation (KCDC) has been strongly opposed by the KCDC chairman Kallige Tharanath Shetty.

He has also not taken kindly to the fact that the decision has been taken without consulting KCDC which has even a chief conservator of forests as its managing director.

Says Shetty, "The aims and objectives of the Rubber Board and the KCDC are entirely different. The Rubber Board has its own problems and has 2,000 employees. The Karnataka Forest Development Corporation gets Rs 300 crore from the government and though the KCDC is part and parcel of the Karnataka Forest Development Corporation it does not get a single paise from it," he lamented.

Meanwhile, the KCDC is busy with growing new plantations. It has undertaken the cultivation of cashew trees in 1,300 hectares, in addition to its 16 lakh plants in 26,500 hectares, this financial year.

It has the single largest holding in Asia. The areas which come under the KCDC comprise Kundapur, Moodabidri and Puttur divisions. "But the trees were planted 25 years back and hence we are going in for advanced plantation and additional plantation," he said.

He also regretted that the government was not giving adequate attention to the problems facing cashew processing industries.

"The foreign exchange earned from the export of cashew kernels is around Rs 2,000 crore. But about Rs 1,000 crore is spent on importing raw cashewnut. The raw cashewnut is imported from Africa which is now starting its own processing industries. Not even 25 per cent of the raw cashewnut processed in Karnataka is grown here. Only 50 per cent of the raw cashewnut needed for processing is grown in India. The cashew processing industry is the highest employment generating industry next to beedi. Thus we are facing an alarming position," he added.