Tamil Nadu gets its first spice park: All you need to know

Tamil Nadu’s first and India’s fifth spice park was opened at remote Mattupetty village in Sivaganga district on Sunday to give a a boost to spice farmers and traders in the southern state.

The park, set up at a cost of Rs 20 crore on nearly 29.50 hectares for processing turmeric and chilli, was opened by union Minister of Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma in the presence of Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday. The objective of the parks is to provide common infrastructure facilities for both post-harvest and processing operations of spices.

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 realisation. Four such parks are already functioningat Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh for garlic and chilli, Puttady in Kerala for pepper and cardamom, Kota in Rajasthan for coriander and cumin and Guna in Madhya Pradesh for coriander, fenugreek and garlic.

According to a report in Economic Times, thepark is aimed at facilitating the processing and value addition of turmeric and chilli, the major spices grown in the region, by setting up common facilitieslike power, water, communication facilities, warehousing, wide roads etc related to the park.

The Spice board will lease out the lands available in the park to private entrepreneurs for developing their own processing plants for value addition of spices for 30 years, the report added.

Tamil Nadu holds around 10 percent of the total production of spices in the country and is the second largest producer of turmeric as the average production of turmeric in the state is over three lakh tonnes per year, said a Business Line report.

Hence, theprojects are primarily intended to benefit the growing community through quality improvement, grading, packing, warehousing, etc for value addition which would lead to better price realisation 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.

“After establishing the processing units by the exporters the farming community can link directly with the exporters for selling their produce on a premium price and eliminate intermediaries in the supply chain,” ET added.

The other centres where Spices Parks are proposed include Guntur (Andhra Pradesh), Jodhpur (Rajasthan) and Mehsana (Gujarat).