TN plans pack houses for agro products

The Tamil Nadu government will establish 60 pack houses for grading and packaging agricultural and horticultural products.

It will also purchase reefer vans for transporting perishables in a controlled ambience.

Addressing AGRICON "� 2007, a two-day convention organised by the Trichy Zone of CII, P M Basheer Ahmed, Commissioner of Agricultural Marketing and Agro Business, Government of Tamil Nadu, said the installation of pack houses would begin soon as suitable locations were found across the state.

Apart from the above project, which is being planned under the National Horticulture Mission of the ministry of agriculture, another scheme to install an e-auction system for banana growers will also be implemented, Ahmed said.

The scheme will be analogous to the system currently prevailing in the Nilgris for marketing flowers and will help banana growers get competitive prices, besides ensuring quicker access to international markets.

Before implementing the e-auction system, Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU) will conduct a detailed survey analysing the various varieties of banana cultivated in the state, their concentration and the viability of manufacturing value-added banana products.

The Tamil Nadu agriculture department was also planning to construct a marketing complex for bananas at Kattuputhur, about 16 km from Trichy, as a pilot project, Ahmed said, adding TNAU had launched a domestic and market intelligence cell, which would provide information on the prices of various agricultural produce.

S Dave, director, Apeda (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority), assured that a cold storage facility for agro produce would be installed free of cost by the authority, provided a 100-sq metre site was allocated by the Airports Authority of India at the Trichy international airport.

This facility, with a capacity of 10 tonnes, could be commissioned within two months, and AAI could take over its management and maintenance.

He also said that a packaging centre for bananas and banana products could be set up in Trichy at an outlay of Rs 7 crore, pending a formal proposal from the state government.

B V Ramanan, chairman, CII Trichy zone, announced that CII would initiate the formation of clusters of banana growers and product manufacturers, enabling them to inculcate the latest technologies on the job.

The cluster will bring under its ambit a wide range of activities, including preparation of the fields, cultivation techniques, post-harvesting exercises, as well as marketing methodology.

CII will also coordinate with the National Research Centre for Banana (NRCB), which has developed about 15 value-added banana products. This will help promote entrepreneurs embarking on manufacturing banana products on a commercial scale.

NRCB Trichy has developed a technology to produce banana candy, jelly, jam, etc.