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.

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Kore said that the government was also looking at joint ventures across the globe to offer degrees to students, who take up courses. Maharashtra makes around 1.42 Crore litres of wine. However, the per capita consumption is negligible as compared to 60-80 litres of wine per year in France, Italy and Australia. Some concerns that the wine industry noted at the international meet on grapes and wines were low domestic consumption, virus attack of leaf roll, rugose and global warming, that is destroying grape crops. The state government will also set up a Horticulture Board to boost productivity of horticulture products.

Last year, the arrival of grapes had begun on October 15 in Nashik APMC, with wholesale rate of Rs. 43 per kg. Although, grapes have still not reached Nashik APMC even after a month as compared to last year, some fruits trading firms have started procuring grapes directly from the grape-growers at their vineyards for the last week.

The regular arrival of grapes in Nashik markets is expected to begin by the first week of December 2008.

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“Mahindra Shubhlabh exported 3511.79 metric tonnes (MT) of grapes (281 containers) to Netherland, European Union and UK, recording 186.91 per cent rise during the FY 2007-08, against 1,224 MT (102 containers) during FY 2006-07,” sources told Business Standard.

The company had reportedly signed a contract with around 775 grape-growers from Nashik and Sangli districts to source export quality grapes. The company sourced 2599.29 MT of grapes (208 containers) from Nashik district and 912.5 MT of grapes (73 containers) from Sangli district.

“MSSL has shown outstanding performance in the export of grapes in last few years. The company’s grape export has increased 46-fold in the last four years from mere 78 MT (six containers) in FY 2004-05 to 3511..79 MT (281 containers). The company had exported 375 MT of grapes (30 containers) in FY 2005-06 and 1275 MT of grapes (102 containers) in FY 2006-07.

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Across the state of Mahrashtra, Nashik was the coldest at 4.4 degrees, followed by Pune at 5.8 degrees . The weather bureau has warned of impending cold waves in the North Madhya Maharashtra region that covers Pune, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Jalgaon and Dhule.

The private partner would be allowed to collect user charges from traders for services offered during a period of the agreement. The interested firms, it said, can submit their bids by March 7 next to the agriculture board. Although the terminal market s would be meant for perishable products such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, meat, poultry, they would also be permitted to trade non-perishable products up to 15 per cent of total trade.
The Mumbai market, which would handle 3,500 tonne of farm output every day, is expected to cost Rs 200 crore. The project cost of Nashik market has been estimated at Rs 60 crore, while for Nagpur market it would be Rs 55 crore. – PTI