 "An artist smells a mango at the West Bengal Mango festival in New Delhi")
The little-known Amrapali mango grown in Bankura district of West Bengal has now found buyers in Dubai, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
Horticulture Department officials said mango producers in Bankura have received orders of exporting 8 metric tonnes of Amrapali to Dubai this season.
"They have started sending it after a quality test report from the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda) cleared the product," department official Sanjoy Sengupta said.
He said the delectable taste of the mouth-watering variety has been gaining popularity gradually over the years.
Producers have been sending it to all over the country but this is the first time that any variety of mango from Bankura is getting export orders.
So far, only mangoes from Malda and Murshidabad were the famous ones in the state.
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"Now we are trying to create Bankura as a brand in the world of mangoes. Our red laterite soil produces an unmatchable taste," officials said.
Sengupta said that they were already receiving queries about the fruit from Hong Kong and Malaysia, where Amrapali would be exported next year.
This year, the district produced around 130 tonnes of Amrapalis in around 730 mango orchards.
The largest orchard of 84 bigha is in Damadorpur where the highest number of Amrapalis are produced.
Last year, Bankura's Amrapali had bagged the first prize in the agri-horticulture fair in Kolkata.
At an ongoing mango festival in Delhi, where state horticulture department officials are present, Bankura is beating other districts.
"Bankura is getting more attention than any other district. The demand is so high that all our stocks are getting exhausted," Sengupta said.
