ONGOLE: As part of the Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI), a brainchild of the Union Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), the authorities are planning to establish pulses processing units benefitting the farmers of Kanigiri in Prakasam district.
The scheme will not only help farmers convert their farm produce into fine quality consumable goods, but also will provide minimum support price (MSP) for their yield. The Centre will establish the Kanigiri pulses processing cluster with an estimated cost of Rs 5 crore in an area spanning 2 acres near Perama Gudipalli village soon.
In this connection, the officials of the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Society For Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA), and the members of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) recently conducted pulses processing cluster artisans verification programme in the Kanigiri agricultural market yard and created awareness among the farmers regarding the project.
For a long time, a large number of farmers belonging to the western parts of the district that includes the Giddalur, Markapur and Kanigiri areas, have been cultivating pulses in a big way. Now the proposed processing cluster will benefit the farmers by introducing advanced cultivation techniques, high yielding, preservation/ storage, marketing, MSP and value addition to the raw produce, which in turn fetch profits to the farmers’ community.
Already 1,230 farmers from Hanumanthunipadu (HM Padu) and Kanigiri Mandal limits registered their names to cultivate pulses under this Kanigiri pulses processing cluster and many others are showing interest in this new project.
“More than 30,000 Kanigiri area farmers have been cultivating red gram, black gram, green gram, Bengal gram, horse gram, black-eyed gram etc in around 65,000 acres of land. The proposed pulses processing units will be managed by the federation/association of the FPO and this will be a boon to the Kanigiri farmers”, said T Ravi Kumar, DRDA project director.