Banana packhouse likely to be ready by April '08

The much-awaited project of the Gujarat Agro Industries Corporation is likely to get a boost this year as GAIC has decided to float a tender for setting up the facility again after one failed attempt to attract the developers.

The project is handled jointly by the GAIC and Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA).

"We have re-floated the tender for setting up the banana packhouse facility in the Jhagadia taluk of Bharuch district. We expect the facility to be commissioned by April 30, 2008. We had earlier also floated a global tender for this project however, we had only received two bids and no proposals were acceptable to the authority. Looking at the informal responses we have been receiving, we are sure that this time the response to the tender will be much bigger," said S C Srivastava, Managing Director, GAIC while speaking to Business Standard.

On the project he said, "The banana pack house is to be built according to the international standards that are found in state-of-the-art contemporary fruit and vegetable pack houses across the world. The project would source good quality Banana from concentrated pockets in South and Central Gujarat and treat and package them to confirm to global standards for supply to export markets. The project size is approximately to treat 28,400 tonne per annum of banana. The project cost is likely to be around Rs 2 crore."

"Major operations of the banana packhouse at Jhagadia will include receiving bananas from nearby farms, inspection, de-latexing, grading and sorting, quality checking and weighing, labeling, packing in poly-bag, de-vacuuming, packing in cartons, storage in cold room and dispatch through reefer containers. The packhouse will provide facilities like pre-cooling unit, refrigeration equipment, grading and sorting lines, ripening chamber, conveyor system for collection shed, conveyor system for pack house, two reefer trucks, two collection centres," he said.

According to GAIC Anand produces 504.2 MT of banana, Surat 363.95 MT, Vadodara 171.97 MT, Narmada 149 MT and Bharuch produces 115 MT of banana.

Srivastava was present at a press conference held to announce the forthcoming Agri-Fare 2008 and FoodEx- 2008 to be held in Ahmedabad between January 24 to 27, 2008. Rajesh Gandhi, MD, Vadilal Industries and Amitabh Shrivastava, director, Confederation of Indian Industry (Gujarat chapter) were present at the event.

Over 20 to 25 foreign delegates from agriculture and food processing industries are likely to participate in the conference.