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Fruitful times
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A parliamentary committee has asked the ministry of DoNER to increase budgetary allocation for Neramac to ensure its exponential growth.
“Although Neramac continues to be a profit-making organisation, with a net profit of Rs 1.47 crore during 2010-11, a meagre provision of Rs 2 crore in 2011-12 and 2012-13 is not sufficient for growth of the organisation. The committee, therefore, recommends that the ministry of DoNER may pursue higher budgetary allocation for its exponential growth,” the committee said in its report recently.
On being asked about the projected demand in 2012-13 and the reason for limiting the allocation for Neramac to Rs 2 crore in 2011-12, the ministry replied that the projected demand was Rs 2 crore. It added that the ministry of finance was averse to increasing the budgetary allocation (non-plan) for Neramac despite repeated requests.
“The budgetary allocation should be increased to Rs 6-7 crore, which would help us increase our turnover and also wipe out accumulated losses, which, in turn, would help us get loans from commercial banks,” a Neramac official said.
On being asked about the financial health of the corporation, the ministry said it had been making profits from 2007-08. The net profit for the financial year 2010-11 was Rs 1.47 crore.
About improving marketing infrastructure for agricultural and value-added agricultural products and future plans in this regard, the ministry said Neramac proposed to set up a quality assurance and central packaging unit. This would help the processing units package their products innovatively depending upon the product and market demand. It will also help add value to horticultural produces to bring different products like juice, squash, jams, pickles, candies, dehydrated products and others under a common brand for effective marketing.
The committee has, however, expressed its displeasure over the fact that despite its recommendation made in 2010-11 for setting up of cashew processing plant at Mancachar, Assam, modernising and restructuring of the fruit juice concentration plant at Nalkata, Tripura, setting up of a multi-fruit processing plant at Silchar and setting up of a central packaging centre at Chaygaon in Assam under NLCPR scheme of government of India, they were still incomplete. “The projects should be completed without further delay,” it stated.
The official said the cashew processing plant would be commissioned by March next year. “There has to be sufficient working capital and it should be available on time to implement such a large project.”
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