Comments
The Narendra Modi government’s ambitious plan to develop the horticulture value chain through cluster development programme (CDP) got a start on Monday with Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launching the first 12 out of 53 horticulture clusters in the country.
A scheme being launched through Agriculture Ministry’s National Horticulture Board, CDP aims at growing and developing identified horticulture clusters to make them globally competitive, an official statement said.
The clusters chosen for the pilot phase are Shopian (J&K) and Kinnaur (HP) for Apple, Lucknow (UP), Kutch (Gujarat) and Mahbubnagar (Telangana) for Mango, Anantpur (AP) and Theni (TN) for Banana, Nasik (Maharashtra) for Grapes, Siphahijala (Tripura) for Pineapple, Solapur (Maharashtra) and Chitradurga (Karnataka) for Pomegranate and West Jaintia Hills (Meghalaya) for Turmeric.
These clusters will be implemented through Cluster Development Agencies (CDAs) which are appointed on the recommendations of the respective State/UT government, the statement said.
Talking about the reach and impact of the programme, Tomar said, CDP will benefit about 10 lakh farmers and related stakeholders of the value chain. With this programme, we aim to improve exports of the targeted crops by approximately 20 per cent and create cluster-specific brands to enhance the competitiveness of cluster crops. CDP is expected to attract an estimated investment of ₹10,000 crore when implemented in all the 53 clusters.
The programme is expected to converge with other government initiatives such as the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund which is a medium - long term financing facility for investment in projects for post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets and will leverage the central sector scheme for formation and promotion of 10,000 Farmers Producer Organisations.
The Cluster Development Programme has a huge potential to transform the entire horticulture ecosystem improving its global competitiveness by building last-mile connectivity with the use of multimodal transport for the efficient and timely evacuation and transport of horticulture produce.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.