An Udyan Fresh outlet in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 2: Every homemaker’s dream of adding a fresh flavour to her casserole is set to come true.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has allotted five more plots of land to the directorate of horticulture to set up Udyan Fresh kiosks, an initiative to provide fresh vegetables and fruits to city residents.

The kiosks will come up in Jayadev Vihar, Saheed Nagar, Baramunda, Bhimapur and Patia, each of them being a 600sqft air-conditioned outlet. Two such outlets in the city near Regional College of Education and Unit-II are already operating while a third one near Chandrasekharpur is nearing completion.

“This is a good initiative by the state government. One can get fresh vegetables and fruits at reasonable prices,” said Sumitra Sahani, a homemaker.

Officials at the directorate of horticulture said they were planning to set up 21 such outlets in the city. “The response to the existing outlets has been encouraging,” said deputy director of horticulture, Swayam Bikash Das.

Sources in the directorate said as many as 23 collection points had been identified for bringing in vegetables to sell. The sale of vegetables and fruits through vending carts will also begin shortly. As per official estimates, the city requires nearly 380 metric tonne of vegetables daily.

The horticulture directorate in partnership with Surendra Agritech Private Limited, a private Odisha-based company, would manage the kiosks. While the government will provide land to the private partner, the latter would ensure proper storage and marketing of the vegetables.

The directorate would fix the price of vegetables and fruits. The project also aims at procuring vegetables and fruits at a fair price from the farmers.

The supply chain includes setting up of aggregation points for registered farmers to collect vegetables and bringing to the outlets in cold vans. Weighing machines would be installed at various aggregation points.

The private party involved would set up a cold storage to store vegetables. Sources said there were around 6,000 registered farmers within a 50km radius of Bhubaneswar, who would benefit from the Udyan Fresh project.

As many as 300 registered farmers’ cooperatives are active within this area.