The Hindu Business Line : Centre to invest Rs 8,000 cr in plantation

Thiruvananthapuram May 3 The Centre is planning to invest around Rs 8,000 crore for the revitalisation and productivity improvement of the plantation sector covering tea, cardamom, coconut, pepper, coffee and rubber, said the Union Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh.

This called for integrated policy-oriented research on the import policy and price stabilisation for spending the funds in a meaningful manner, he told newspersons here on Thursday.

He said the Commerce Ministry would fund the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) here to build research capacities for studies in the plantation sector. He asked the CDS Director to prepare a proposal for the research programmes and promised to provide Rs 2 crore over a period of five years.

LOW PRODUCTIVITY

He said the biggest problem in the plantation sector was lack of steady income for the farmers. Low productivity was one of the main reasons for the situation.

There were also the widely debated issue of opening up of the imports in the new world order and the impact of imports on the domestic prices. The Government required intellectual support in these areas, the Minister said.

He noted that almost 90 per cent of the funds allocated by the Commerce Ministry for infrastructure development was going to Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. So, he was focussing on Kerala for efficient utilisation of the funds, he added.