KOCHI:The Coconut Development Board (CDB) has approved 30 projects with an outlay of Rs 31.34 crore and financial assistance of Rs 6.39 crore to process 803 lakh coconuts and 9,000 tones of coconut shell charcoal.
The 30 projects include eight research and 22 projects on processing of coconuts for value addition. The projects were approved in the 50th meeting of the Project Approval Committee (PAC) on Technology Mission on Coconut (TMOC) held here. CDB chairman B N S Murthy chaired the meeting.
The projects under the sub-component ‘Processing and Product Diversification’ include five ball copra-making units with the capacity to annually process 41 lakh coconuts, four copra dryer units which can annually process 120 lakh coconuts, three projects for desiccated coconut powder that can annually process 255 lakh nuts, two integrated processing units for the desiccated coconut powder and virgin coconut oil which can process 96 lakh nuts per year.
The other projects are two tender coconut water processing and packaging units which can process 75 lakh nuts per year, two coconut oil units which can process 135 lakh nuts per year, one unit for making dietary fibre from coconut flour having a capacity to process 36 lakh nuts per year, two units which can produce 9,000 tonnes of shell charcoal per year and one frozen shredded coconut which can process 45 lakh nuts per year.
Kerala will get one coconut oil unit for processing 15,000 coconuts per day, one integrated coconut processing unit which can process 12,000 nuts per day for desiccated coconut powder and virgin coconut oil, three copra dryer units able to process 30,000 nuts per day and one frozen shredded coconut unit to process 15,000 nuts per day.