Centre to set up vegetable clusters near cities

The centre plans to launch a new scheme called 'vegetable initiative for urban clusters' during the current financial year at an outlay of Rs300 crore under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.

The scheme envisages development of vegetable clusters to supply vegetables to one city or town in every state with a population of one million or more. In case of states that do not have a city with a one million population as in the north east or Goa, the state capital  will be covered.

According to a government press release, "The scheme covers all aspects relating to vegetable production, from production and supply of planting material to marketing upto the retail level along with support for conducting base line survey, formation of farmer groups, their linkage to aggregators / markets besides training and capacity building of vegetable growers in the identified clusters.

The production of vegetables in the country has increased from 111.39 million tonnes in 2005-06 to 133.7 million tonnes in 2009-10.

"Accordingly, per capita availability of vegetables has increased from 279 gm per day to 317 gm per day over a period of 5 years," the statement said, adding "However, there are issues relating to enhancement of productivity, post-harvest losses and improvement in quality of vegetables.

This was stated by minister of state for agriculture and food processing industries Harish Rawat in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha yesterday.