Agencies
Chandigarh, Dec 5 : State-owned Jammu and Kashmir Horticultural Produce Marketing & Processing Corp Ltd will revive its processing and grading plants and cold storages for apple and walnut crops, which were closed more than 20 years ago due to militancy, a top official of the company said.
"We will revive our packaging, grading and processing plants for apple and walnut in phased manner which remained closed (since militancy erupted) in 1990s," J&K HPMC Managing Director Syed Rafiq Ahmad Furrahi said here. An outlay of Rs 82 crore has been finalised for reviving packaging, processing and cold storage plants, he said. He added that out of total proposed outlay, 50 per cent funds would be provided by the Union Ministry of Food Processing while 30 per cent funds would be raised through banks and rest would be contributed by J&K HPMC. In the first phase, the Corporation will revive eight apple processing, packaging, grading plants, eight cold storages and four walnut processing and drying plants, Furrahi said. These plants and storages are located in Kulgam, Pulwama, Zakura and Baramulla, among other places, he said.
At present, the Corporation is operating one apple processing plant, one walnut processing plant and fruit and transshipment centre. He said production of apple and walnut in J&K is pegged at 22 lakh metric tonne per annum. Sharing details about new projects, Furrahi said that Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority would provide a sum of Rs 3.88 crore for setting up new cold storage with a capacity of 100 tonne at Shopian in Kashmir. Among other projects, a mango processing plant with an outlay of Rs 6.5 crore will come up at Akhnoor in Jammu with a capacity of 5,000 tonne per annum, he added. He further said an apricot dehydration unit at a cost of Rs 22 crore would be set up with the financial assistance of the Ministry of Food Processing at Ladakh and one cold storage with a sum of Rs 10 crore would come up at Narwal in Jammu. J&K HPMC is eyeing to double turnover from Rs 10 crore in last fiscal to Rs 20 crore in 2012-13, he said. |
