Taking advantage of its proximity to the national capital, Haryana is planning in a big way to tap potential of Delhi markets to sell its fresh fruits and vegetables as part of its plan to provide remunerative prices to state growers.
The BJP-led Haryana government has also plans to set up exclusive outlets in Delhi's bustling markets to cater to all sections of consumers.
To make the things viable, we are exploring the PPP mode, under which fresh fruits and vegetables and even flowers can be supplied," Haryana's Agriculture Minister O P Dhankar told PTI here.
The government has also expressed interest in working with the private players for supplying horticulture crops in order to make this ambitious project as great success.
"The potential is huge and we are exploring how it can be tapped in a big way since we have the locational advantage as Haryana is very close to Delhi.
Over the last few years, Haryana has seen paradigm shift in cultivation from traditional crops to cash-rich crops with growers now preferring to grow high quality vegetables like tomato, capsicum, cucumber, chillies, brinjal etc using latest cultivation techniques like growing crops in green house.
"We want that Haryana farmers should get maximum return from their crops. We are planning to set up 'Haryana Fresh' outlets in Delhi markets," he added.
Acreage under vegetables in Haryana has seen upward trend in fast few years and vegetables output jumped from 29.84 lakh metric tonne in 2005-06 to 50.11 lakh tonne in 2012-13.
Similarly, area under fruits have grown manifold in the state, rising from about 27,000 hectares in 2005-06 to 49,536 hectares in 2012-13 with major crops being mango, guava, citrus, Ber.
Among its initiative to boost production of horticulture crops, the Haryana government had set up a Centre of Excellence for Vegetables in collaboration with Israel at Gharaunda in Karnal district.
Under this project, farmers were demonstrated latest technologies of intensive crop cultivation to achieve higher output.
Meanwhile, Dhankar said that the Agriculture department would be organising an Agriculture Leadership Summit in February next year in Gurgaon.
"The summit would provide a common platform to agriculture leaders of national level, state and even district level," he said.
