VIJAYAWADA: Mango farmers of Nuzvid sighed with relief when they heard that an experts' team would come to finalise the proposals sent by the Krishna district administration for an integrated infrastructure development project to boost mango exports. The team is expected to visit the gardens sometime this week.

Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh announced on April 5 that the project work would commence in the next "three or four months." He said he would ask the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) to send a team immediately.

Though district Collector Navin Mittal has been showing a lot of interest, response from the State Government has been lukewarm.

The farmers were a little demoralised by the `cold response' of Principal Secretary Deepak Kumar Panwar to the idea of developing infrastructure project at Nuzvid. Mr. Panwar had said that despite its great taste, it was difficult to export Nuzvid mango because of geographic location. He had also expressed the feeling that it was not viable to make such a large investment here, because the productivity of gardens in the district was on the decline as most of the trees were old.

Project report

However, a project report for Rs 41.50 crores was prepared for developing an auction and distribution centre, food processing park and common facilities by the district administration. A 30-acre plot, which was earmarked several years ago for development of an industrial estate and was lying vacant without any activity adjacent to the Nuzvid agricultural market yard, was identified for development of the infrastructure project. An equal extent of land was handed over to the Mango Research Station that was functioning more on paper than on field.

According to statistics with the Horticulture Department, 6.2 lakh tonnes of mangoes were cultivated on 62,000 hectares mainly in 13 upland mandals of the district. Arbitrary fixing of price by upcountry traders at the Nunna mango market had made mango cultivation unremunerative, according to the farmers.

Less than 600 tonnes of mango has been exported from the district so far, despite a good demand for it in places mostly populated by Telugu NRIs. With the revival of activity on the project, the hopes of mango growers have been rejuvenated.

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