Chief Secretary JK Mohapatra on Tuesday directed the Horticulture Directorate to initiate steps for enhancing production in urban vegetable clusters and rope in reputed private partners for development of quality seedlings.
At a high-level meeting here, Mohapatra stated that marketing support and supply of vegetables through cool chains would be enhanced in the urban clusters. He asked the Horticulture Department to increase sale outlets and set up some fixed stations of veggie-cart for easy accessibility of people to Udyan Fresh products.
Possibilities of promoting other brand names for ensuring availability of fresh vegetables in other urban localities were also discussed at the meeting. The Chief Secretary stressed on opening of more retail counters in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.
The urban vegetable cluster scheme was introduced in 2011-12 and later extended to Sambalpur, Brahmapur and Rourkela in 2012-13. Presently, the districts of Puri, Khordha, Nayagarh, Cuttack, Jajpur, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Keonjhar and Ganjam have been covered under the programme. Different types of vegetables are being grown over an area of 6.94 lakh hectares in the State with an annual production of 89.61 lakh tonnes.
“In the view of the present consumption pattern, it is estimated that there is requirement of around 380 tonnes of vegetables per day in Bhubaneswar market alone,” said Mohapatra and asked officials to prepare strategies like formation of farmer producer groups, setting up units for multiplication of quality seedlings, promotion of high-yielding varieties, developing efficient marketing system by involving farmer groups and promotion of vending outlets, both static and mobile, to enhance productivity and marketing facilities. “The cool chain marketing infrastructure will be developed to fetch more returns to farmers,” he stated.
He directed the Horticulture Directorate to have a convergence of National Food Processing Policy with that of State policies and scale up all these activities.
“All the 10 agro-climatic regions of the State will be connected through the cool chain marketing system for circulation of different types of vegetables produced in different regions throughout the year,” said Mohapatra.
Development Commissioner Injeti Srinivas and Deputy Director, Horticulture Swayam Bikash were among the officials who participated in the discussions.