The Spices Board has held an e-auction of small cardamom at Puttady Spice Park in Idukki, where operations were temporarily suspended for technical maintenance and upgrades. One e-auction will be held every week at the park till the maintenance work is completed, said A Jayatilak, Chairman, Spices Board, dispelling rumours that the facility has been shifted to Tamil Nadu.

He urged the farmers not to fall into such traps and ensured that the maintenance works and technical upgrades were progressing at a fast pace. The Board had conducted test trials over the last two weeks with the help of its employees as well as students and ensured that the auction would be conducted in an error-free manner.

Cardamom e-auctions at Puttady had to be temporarily shifted to a centre at Bodinayakanur in Tamil Nadu to prevent disruption of the trade when maintenance got underway. Meanwhile, the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra), has obtained in-principle approval from the Centre to set up a spices processing cluster at Thodupuzha. The Rs12.5-crore project will have an integrated operation for encouraging cultivation, post-harvesting, processing for value addition, packaging, storage and export of spices and spice products. Spaces will be allotted to spice/ food processing units in the SME sector in the 15-acre project.

According to Kinfra officials, Kerala's spice industry has a rosy future with the rise in demand for spices from the emerging neutraceutical segments.

comment COMMENT NOW