Fourth Spice Park in India inaugurated in Guna today

To boost Spice Exports from India

March 16, 2013, Guna: Fourth Spice Park inaugurated in Guna, Madhya Pradesh today by the Hon’ble Union Minister of State, Ministry of Power, Shri Jyotiraditya Scindia. Spice Board of India has taken steps to establish Spices Parks at seven locations in the country to provide scientific infrastructure facilities in order to empower the growers of spices and ensure better price realization. Three of such parks are already functioning in Chhindwara, MP; Puttady, Kerela and Kota, Rajasthan.

The projects on Spices Park are primarily intended to benefit the growing community through quality improvement, grading, packing, warehousing, etc for value addition which would lead to better price realization of their produce. The exporters can also set up their unit in the Parks for processing spices under the terms and conditions of the Board.

The centers where Spices Parks proposed are - Chhindwara [Madhya Pradesh], Puttady [Kerala], Guntur [Andhra Pradesh], Sivaganga [Tamil Nadu], Jodhpur [Rajasthan], Mehsana [Gujarat], Kota [Rajastan] and Guna [Madhya Pradesh].

A Spices Park can be defined as an industrial park for processing and value addition of Spices and spice products which offers the processing facilities at par with the international standards. The Regional crop specific Spices Park is a well-conceived approach to have an integrated operation for cultivation, post harvesting, processing for value addition, packaging, storage and exports of spices and spice products by meeting the quality specifications of the consuming countries.

The basic objective of the concept is to provide common infrastructure facilities for both post harvest and processing operations of spices and spice products, which also aims at backward integration by providing rural employment. All the Spices Park will have processing facilities at par with international standards in which the produces could undergo cleaning, grading, sorting, grinding, packing, warehousing etc. Apart from the above facilities, the Board will develop the common infrastructure facilities like Roads, Water supply system, Power stations, Fire fighting & Control systems, Weighing bridges, effluent Treatment Plants, Quality Lab for checking basic parameters, Bank & Post office counters, Restaurant, Business centers, Guest house etc.

Establishment of Spices Park in the country is a major initiative of the Government as part of its commitment that any growth in the country should be more of agriculture-specific and pro-farmers. The Spice Park will ensure a better pricing for the produce by shortening the channels in the supply chain system currently followed locally. The facilities available in the Spice Park can be utilized by the farming community for primary processing for improving the quality of their product and thereby they can directly sell to the exporters. Spices Park will help render educative services to the farming/trading community. It provides training programmes on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), post harvest operations