The TMCs will come up in Mumbai [ Images ], Nashik and Nagpur. The Rs 250-crore (Rs 2.5 billion) worth Mumbai TMC will come up on 92 acres of land at Babgaon, three kms away from Kalyan on the Nashik-Kalyan Road in Bhiwandi situated in Thane district.

The government has invited applications from reputed players in the field of agri-business, infrastructure development with Request for Qualification (RFQ) in order to shortlist eligible and competant authorities who can subsequently bid for Terminal Market complex for perishables.

“Under the present marketing system, producers and consumers suffer the most. The quantum of middlemen is also too high. Terminal Market is being built to reduce post harvest losses which are now upto 30-40 per cent for perishable goods like fruits and vegetables,” Marketing Minister Harshvardhan Patil told PTI.

Also, farmers will get more remunerative returns by cutting losses and reducing middlemen, he said. Terminal Market Complex is a place where agro products especially pershiables like fruits, vegetables, flowers, herbs, meat, poultry and non-perishables like food grains, oil seeds, pulses, cereals are brought from collection centres and processed.

Principal Secretary (Marketing) S K Goyal said that 7-8 bidders have submitted requests for qualification (RFQ) to build the terminal market in Thane district near Mumbai. The shortlisting of bidders will be completed by this month end following which they will be asked to submit the proposals.

With a daily handling capacity of an estimated 3000 metric tonnes, the terminal will provide state-of-the art infrastructure to electronically auction, grade, wash, package, process and export perishable and non-perishable products, Patil informed.

The Nashik Terminal Market, with an estimated project cost of Rs 60 crore (Rs 600 million) will have handling capacity of 1000 metric tonne/day. About 100 acre of land will be required, Patil said. While the TMC at Nagpur will have an handling capacity of 750 metric tonnes per day and will be built at an estimated cost of Rs 55 crore (Rs 550 million), he said.

Goyal said the government has yet to identify land in Nashik and Nagpur and hand it over to the Maharashtra State Agriculture Marketing Board for the bids to be invited. Global tender notice issued earlier for Mumbai TMC was cancelled due to poor response. Bidders who applied for fresh RFQ will be shortlisted and Request for Proposal (RFP) will be sought following which contracts will be awarded, Patil said.

The central government will provide equity assistance upto 49 per cent of project equity, returnable at market/fair value to be decided at appropriate time, he said. Patil said the Public Enterprise which wins the contract has full freedom to fix service charges based on commercial and viability considerations.
The highest bidder will set up collection centres which will be connected to the TMCs which will help reduce post harvest losses, Patil said.

Apart from reducing the post harvest losses due to the present marketing system, Terminal Markets will link farmers directly to the markets and provide more alternatives to sell their produce and reduce the number of intermediaries.

The Terminal Market complex concept comes from the National Horticulture Mission launched by the Centre in 2005-06 and there will be 21 TMCs in the entire country. TMCs will also help promote export of horticulture produce and processing in the state.

It will initiate the system of using modern technologies in the marketing system and establish a cold chain with the help of private players.

The Terminal Markets will be established in a Public, Private Partnership mode. The proportion of non-perishables in the Terminal Markets shall not exceed 15 per cent of the throughput capacity of the Market.

Similarly, the proportion of non-horticulture products within the perishable commodities shall not exceed 15 per cent of the total throughput of the market. TMCs will lead to creation of more employment opportunities and also check bogus stocking, he said.

The equity from the state government will be in form of land for the Mumbai TMC has already been handed over to the Maharashtra State Agriculture Marketing Board which is the nodal agency.

“Nashik is the biggest producer of horticulture and floriculture products in the state. The district is also developing rapidly as one of the best agricultural sector on the national map. But the district lacks facilities for exporting the produce,” Sudhir Thakre, secretary General Administration (Aviation) Department told Sakaal Times.

Nashik is developing fast as a growth center for industry and agriculture. Cultivated agricultural area is nearly 56% of the total area, the major produce being grapes, onions, flowers and sugarcane. Apart from this, bajra, rice and jowar are the main kharif crops of Nasik district. Cotton and groundnuts are also grown here. Nasik is also now the Wine Capital of India; with the industry growing at a steep rate of 70% a year for the past five years.

“Transportation of some of the perishable and much sought for products becomes very difficult as it has to be transported to Mumbai first via road and then from there it is exported by air route. Since this is a long procedure we were considering of a proposal to set up facilities to use the airport as a cargo hub,” said. The estimated expenditure to set up the facilities is estimated to be Rs 180 crore which would be shared by HAL and the state government after negotiations.

“Sukhoi 30MKI, which are manufactured at the Nashik division of HAL is now-a-days used as the aircraft testing ground. The heliport is generally used for only 3-4 months in a year for testing purpose. So we asked HAL to make the airport available as agro cargo hub,” he said.

Thakre further added that this initiative will also help generating employment as supplementary businesses would flourish here.

http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20100201/5560499295750327937.htm

It was a wonderful experience, completely different and on its own. Unfortunately forgot to carry my camera and had pictures taken from my phone and probably the quality might not be so good. But still for people who have missed it.

I was there for almost an hour and took pictures of the first 4 of them.

1.) Nashik Municipal Corporation Ganpati
2.) Raviwar Karanja Ganpati
3.) Gulalwadi ganesh mandal
4.) Main road Ganesh mandal

The secret of this increased production lies in the fact that storage facilities in the state have improved, proving yet again that minor infrastructure improvements lead to higher yields. The country’s onion exports till last month were 12.1 lakh tonne and this is expected to rise to 15 lakh tonne by March. 

This is against the highest ever exports, achieved in 2006-07, of 11.61 lakh tonne. Maharashtra is on target to increase its production by 10% over its production of 24.28 lakh tonne last year. The secret of this increase is mainly due to extension work from laboratories to the farm. 

Hardly any onion comes into the market during the rainy season. But being a perishable commodity, it has a short shelf life, which is why there is a spike in onion prices during the monsoon months. 

Lessons were learnt over storage following the 1998 onion crisis, when onion prices touched Rs. 40-60 a kg and led to the BJP losing the Delhi NCR elections. 

The Nashik-based National Horticulture Research and Development Foundation(NHRDF) helped farmers improvise and improve their traditional storage structures besides providing guidance for post-harvest management of the crop. NHRDF additional director, SR Bhonde said: “The increased capacity has not only helped rise exports but helped keep domestic prices in check. 

Usually, the major onion crop comes into the market in November. But this year, the rains were late and the new crop did not arrive in markets till December. This could have resulted in a sharp rise in the prices of onions but supply from stored onions had kept prices in check.” 

The improved structures, with better ventilation which prevented the onions from rotting, increased their shelf life. The NHRDF also taught farmers better harvesting practices which improved storage. The project got financial support from the central government’s scheme for constructing storage structures. Under its national agricultural development product, eligible farmers get a subsidy of Rs 1,500 per tonne.

The Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board (MSAMB) has a storage capacity of more than 4 lakh tonne and it plans to increase this to 11 lakh tonne by 2013, DM Sable, manager, Project Onion, MSAMB, said.