5 years on, few takers for Spices Park in Jodhpur
Nearly five years after its inauguration, the Central Spices Board’s Spices Park in Jodhpur has few takers.
The park, aimed at setting up infrastructure and processing facilities for seed spices like coriander, fenugreek, cumin and fennel in PPP (public-private participation) mode, was inaugurated on April 7, 2012. The state government had allocated free 60-acre land at Rampura Bhatia village under Osian tehsil for it.
Later, the Central Spices Board had leased out 24-acre land in the park to 20 private entrepreneurs for developing plants. However, only three entrepreneurs have set up units in the park during the past five years. Consequently, only 2,735 metric tonne (MT) of spices could be processed in 2016-17, while the board has spent around ₹30 crore on infrastructure development and providing facilities to the entrepreneurs.
The board has now decided to issue final notices to the land allottees who are yet to set up units in the park,” said NM Usman, assistant director, regional office, Central Spices Board, Jodhpur. . “If the allottees will fail to start their units within three months, their allotment would be cancelled,” he added.
According to the board officials, a “full line” processing plant for seed spices has been established in the park. The capacity of the processing plant is two-tonne per hour. The plant has pre-cleaning, grading, colour sorting, grinding and packaging facilities.
An entrepreneur, on the condition of anonymity, said the plants could not be established in the park as a majority of the allottees were interested in creating land bank.