Jalpaiguri, April 15: The Rs 20-crore food processing plant of Dabur has come as a big disappointment for local cultivators.

Though chief minister Budhadeb Bhattacharjee had promised during the unit?s inauguration that pineapple growers of the area would benefit from the food processing plant, local cultivators alleged that the company has been procuring the bulk of the supply from the Northeast.

?Last year, the chief minister had emphasised on local procurement of pineapples. So, we were surprised when Dabur started buying local tomatoes instead. In the past eight months, they made some local purchases, but the quantity was pretty low,? said Santosh Ghosh, a local pineapple cultivator having his plantation in Karatowa on the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri highway, just beside the fruit processing unit.

The fact file of the unit, handed over to reporters on the inaugural day, justifies Ghosh?s statement, which showed that pineapples would be procured from the Northeast, tomato from Bengal and fruits like guava, mango, grapes and litchi from Maharastra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Officials of the district administration, however, feel differently. ?The unit needs good quality pineapples and tomatoes. Dabur has purchased tomatoes from Haldibari this year for a good price. If pineapple cultivators can match the quality of their produce to the unit?s standards, their crop will definitely be procured,? said A. Subbiah, the Jalpaiguri district magistrate.

According to him, the production of pineapple pulp and concentrate, which the plant sends to its packaging unit in Nepal, has been stopped. ?They have started tomato processing instead,? he said.

The tomato growers, who had sold their produce at the village markets last year at 25 paisa a kilo, are, however, happy with the chief minister?s commitments.

?They are purchasing from us. This year, a kilo of the best quality of tomato is fetching us Rs 3, which is much better than last year. But they have not confirmed that they will continue procuring from us in the coming years too,? said Jayanta Roy, a local trader of Haldibari.

He alleged that though Bhattacharjee had declared that the unit would make direct purchases from farmers, some middlemen were making money from local sales.

?They are eating away a portion of the profit. We are handing over our produce to them, who in turn are selling it to Dabur. So far, none of the officials of the company have contacted us,? he added.

Dabur officials admitted that they were procuring pineapples from the Northeast, but said purchases have also been made from local growers in Rajgunj and Bidhannagar.

?We procured pineapples from the Northeast and also from local areas. The pineapple processing has been stopped and we are working with tomato, which is purchased from the local market. Quality comes first,? said T.S. Adhikary, the commercial head of the unit.

Chief secretary Ashok Gupta, who visited the Dabur plant here recently, said he was not aware of the unit?s purchases from the Northeast. ?The plant was constructed here with the idea of providing a market to local pineapple growers. If this is not happening, I will definitely look into the matter.?