Siliguri, Dec. 30: Farmers have said 50,000 tons of pineapple worth around Rs 40 crore are lying in storage for absence of customers and sought the government's intervention to tide over the crisis.

Arun Mondal, the secretary of the North Bengal Pineapple Growers' Association, said yesterday that the farmers would face a huge loss if the stored pineapple was not sold.

"Farmers in north Bengal used to produce around one-third of the total pineapple cultivated in India. We used to supply the fruits to Delhi, other states and even export them to Nepal and Bhutan. But this year, because of lack of proper marketing and adequate storage facilities, about 50,000 metric tons of produce are about to rot, which means, a minimum loss of around Rs 40 crore," Mondal said.

Over 20,000 farmers cultivate pineapple on around 21,000 hectares in North Dinajpur and Darjeeling districts.

The growers said there was no government help to ensure that the produce was marketed. "Moreover, the processing units in the region have closed. Traders in Delhi had stopped buying pineapples and the earthquake in Nepal has also affected us. If the state does not come up and help us at this hour of crisis, how can we survive? We want the state to help entrepreneurs set up fruit processing units," said Mondal.

State horticulture minister Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury said he had sought specific proposals from pineapple farmers as to how state could help them.

"But no such proposal or project has come to us from their end. We had also asked them to maintain quality of their fruits. Nevertheless, the state is always keen to help them," said the minister.