Spice Board Of India To Invest In Gujarat Spice Park

The Spices Board of India will invest Rs 100 million to set up a spice park in Gujarat. The state government has already alloted 100 acres of land at Brahman Wada village, near Unjha in Mehsana district.

Sources close to the development said national as well as multinational companies would invest around Rs 1 billion in the park. Efforts are underway to set up the necessary infrastructure to give a fillip to the park. Unjha is seen as an emerging market for cumin seeds in the world.

During 2007-07, the Spices Board registered exports of 70,125 metric tonne of spices including cumin seeds, corriander, fenugreek, bishop’s weed and til seeds, which increased to 82,100 metric tonne in 2007-08.

In effect, export of seed spices increased from Rs 3.62 billion to Rs 5.0775 billion in 2007-08. In terms of volume, seed spices exports increased 18% whereas in terms of value, it grew 11%.

In future, the board will stress on value addition of spices. To promote this idea, plans are afoot to set up Spice Parks in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

Speaking to ET, Marketing Director of Kochi-based Spices Board S Kanan said, "the farmers of the Mehsana district, where the park is coming up, will have access to several utilities like cleaning, grading, sorting, washing, steam sterilisation, cool grinding, vacuum cleaning, packing and godown utilities for their produce. Apart from this, we will carry out exports from this park for which necessary custom clearances and banking facilities will be made available."

Besides this, farmers will be able to get more money for their produce, since the valuation of spices will be higher.

Mehsana Collector Ajay Bhado said, "Work is in progress for the spice park and the process of allotment of land will be over soon."

Source: Economic Times