Comments
Hyderabad, April 14:
The Telangana State Cooperative Oilseeds Growers Federation (TS Oilfed) will set up a palm oil processing factory at Narmetta village in the Siddhipet district of Telangana. The Federation will spend ₹300 crore on setting upthe factory in about 60 acres.
“We will make saplings available for farmers to plant in about 20,000 acres in the district. “Farmers have already planted the crop in about 3,000 acres,” Telangana Finance and Health Minister, who represents the Siddhipet Assembly constituency, has said.
Asking the farmers to shun paddy and shift to oil palm cultivation, Telangana Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy said that the power and water required for one acre of paddy would be sufficient for four acres of oil palm plantation. “Farmers will get an assured income of ₹1.50 lakh a year. Besides, they can go for inter-cropping for additional income,” he said.
Oil palm focus
The Telangana Government has set a target of covering 20 lakh acres in the next six years. In the first phase, 10 lakh acres would be covered in the next three years.
The State, which presently has an oil palm plantation in 50,000 acres, promotes the edible oil crop as an alternative to paddy. The paddy area has gone up three times in the State – from 40 lakh acres to about 1.18 crore acres, triggering a procurement challenge.
The State government has identified 25 districts suitable for the plantation crop. It placed an order for 3.35 crore oil palm sprouts.
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.