Agricultural exports from Chhattisgarh which has been a distant dream for majority of farmers is soon going to become easy.
The Central Government has decided to support certification agency based model in Chhattisgarh for exporting agricultural products.
“We are willing to support Chhattisgarh-based certification agency model recognised by the State Government for becoming an accreditation agency,” said Union Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia in a reply to the query about inability of majority of farmers in Chhattisgarh to export their products due to lack of certification.
The Union Commerce Secretary while addressing a press conference here informed that under the Sagarmala project, two new transport hubs have been identified for Chhattisgarh and one of them is about to be completed in Naya Raipur. The state-of-art dry port will be commissioned by July 2016, she said.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) Krishna Kumar informed that the State Government has identified certain fruits and vegetables which are yielding good produce in Chhattisgarh.
“APEDA will handle the forward linkage while the State government will handle backward linkage. It means there are certain specific requirements like good hygiene practices, good production practices etc that should be followed during production,” he said.
We have prepared some package of practice that we will share with the State Government and the government will then tell farmers to practice those packages so that standard products could be produced. APEDA will then bring exporters who in turn will pick up products from here,” Kumar said.
Subodh Kumar Singh Secretary, Industries, Government of Chhattisgarh informed that the State government was focussing more on food processing and in last 5-6 months, more than 1,000 crores of investment proposals have been sent.
“Three maize processing plants and three sugar factories are also coming up in State,” he said while accepting that there was much work to be done for promoting tamarind and cashew nut cultivation in Chhattisgarh.
The Union Commerce Secretary informed that a unique ‘India Trade Portal’ has been launched to felicitate exporters.
“Anybody can access it. It has information about trade agreement that have been signed by India with other countries. In addition to it, information about big foreign importers like what they import and what is the size of their market is also on the portal so that any exporter can access it. What are the rules that apply, what are the sanitary measures applicable in that country and a host of other information is also available on the website,” Union Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia said while adding that the idea behind the portal was to create a one-stop shop for exporters.