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To ensure uninterrupted supply of vegetables to over one million cities and towns in the country, the government is working overtime to establish community vegetable clusters in the coming rabi season.
“We are making every effort to start area expansion and sow vegetables under the vegetable cluster scheme from the coming rabi season,” an Agriculture Ministry official told PTI.
In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee had announced that vegetable clusters would be set up at an outlay of Rs 300 crore to cater to demand in urban areas during the 2011-12 financial year.
The scheme, called the National Vegetable Initiative (NVI), is a part of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and will cover all aspects related to vegetable production, from supply of planting material and production to marketing and retail.
The scheme was conceptualised in the backdrop of soaring onion prices and surging rates of other vegetables in end-December of 2010 and the early months of 2011. The government had received a lot of flak when the prices of onion soared to Rs 80-85 a kg at the time, with tomato and garlic prices following suit.
“Currently, baseline survey work is being conducted in all the states and their report is expected by the end of this month,” the official said.
After receiving reports, there will be a national review meeting in Delhi, which is expected to take place in October, the official added.
The baseline survey will cover aspects such as the population of cities and towns, their vegetable requirements, production, shortfalls, etc, and will also look at ways to attract private investment in the field, the official added.
“States have identified 10 aggregators (private firms), who will be responsible for taking the vegetables from the farms to the shops,” official said.
Some of the identified aggregators are ITC Ltd for Andhra Pradesh, Mandi Fresh for Haryana, Rana Green for Madhya Pradesh, Gopi Sewa Sadakari Sansth for Maharashtra and International Traceability Systems for Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir.
In addition, Samridhii Agri Products has been identified for Bihar and the Vegetable and Fruit Promotion Council of Kerala, the official added.
The states have to get the vegetable cluster projects approved by their respective State-Level Sanctioning Committees (SLSC), the official said.
“Projects have been approved by the SLSCs in 22 states and Rs 119.94 crore has been released to these states so far,” the official added.
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