• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

R. Balaji

TIRUCHI, Feb. 10

THE Tamil Nadu Government will upgrade facilities at the agriculture marketing yards and shortly invite the private sector to set up cold-storage facilities in major horticulture production centres, according to Mr K. Ganesan, Commissioner, Agriculture Marketing and Agribusiness.

Talking to newspersons here on Sunday at the Agri Conclave 2002, he said that the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) was working on a market information centre to utilise information technology tools to disseminate price information to farmers. This will be implemented in 10 regulated marketing yards including in Erode, Salem, Madurai, Tiruppur, and Jayamkondam. Electronic displays and dissemination of information over the Internet will be enabled, he said.

In the second phase, the facility would be provided at 30 more centres. The Government will also call for expressions of interest from the private sector to set up cold storage infrastructure in various locations, he said.

In Tiruchi, a centralised common facility for food processing industries would be established. This would provide testing, grading and sorting, and packaging facilities for the individual food processing units, Mr Ganesan said.

The virtual office of the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority would shortly be shifted to the Agriculture Marketing Office, he said. It was currently with the Tamil Nadu Agro-Industries Corporation.

Addressing the valedictory of the two-day Agri Conclave 2002, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, Mr S.S. Palanimanickam, MP and Chairman, Standing Committee on Agriculture, said that industry organisations like the CII should take steps to encourage corporate and contract farming in Tamil Nadu. This could be along the lines of Pepsi's efforts in Punjab.

The focus was also on medicinal plants cultivation. The State has a large potential with nearly 4,500 applications from Tamil Nadu alone pending with the authorities concerned for projects relating to medicinal plants, he said.

While the common grouse was the lack of sufficient funds for research, a recent meeting with ICAR officials and State Agriculture University representatives showed that the allocated funds had not been fully utilised, he said.

Mr Surjit Chaudhary, Horticulture Commissioner, Tamil Nadu, said that the research was often not in tune with farmers' requirements. The State Government had initiated various policy measures to encourage commercialisation of agriculture.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section
Govt tapping overseas market to retire dollar loan

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line