Sandesh Prabhudesai
7 October 1997
If the Goa government agrees, Reliance Industries Ltd would be the first company to have country's biggest cashew-related horticulture project, spread over 9000 hectares of forest land.
The proposal submitted by the RIL assures jump in cashew production by 13 fold while targeting the export market in the USA, Japan, middle east, Europe and Russia.
Though the plan sounds attractive, the state government is playing safe by inviting bids for a joint venture project, giving the government land on 30-year lease.
It would however stall the government plans to boost cashew production by forming the Goa forest development corporation, which was supposed to begin its work from next year.
The cashew yield in the forest land is dropped to around 300 kgs per hectare, with an annual income of hardly Rs one crore. The GDFC had plans to replace the old and senile trees with high yielding Vengurla 4 seedlings, investing Rs 26 crore.
Planting 200 trees per hectare, the estimated yield was 1200 kgs per hectare, increasing its production from the present 1.5 kgs per tree to six kgs per tree, with annual income of Rs 30 crore.
But it's not a match to the RIL's offer, which assures the yield of 4000 kgs per hectare, at the production rate of 20 kgs per tree within three years. Planning state of the art technology for plantation and processing, the assured FOREX earnings are Rs 130 crore while the GDP effect on Goa's economy would be Rs 320 crore.
With an approximate investment of around Rs 110 crore, the RIL plans to use clonal propagation, mechanised farming, drip irrigation system combined with liquid fertilisers, pesticide spraying and effective methods like pruning the trees at regular intervals, to boost the yield.
Establishing a brand, Goa's famous cashew feni would be then marketed in the international market, besides also exporting apple juice of around 1080 lakh litres annually as a natural drink and the residue of cashew apple as the fodder, at the annual rate of 72,000 metric tonnes.
The annual cashew nut production estimated by the RIL is around 36,000 mt while the cashew nut shell liquid would be around 6400 mt, widely used in the paints and brake liner industry.
As most of the population involved in the production would be rural, the RIL also envisages an employment potential of around 17,000, besides assuring infrastructural development, schools, clinics, hospitals and recreational facilities.
The proposal has also received positive response as most of the state-owned corporations, including the Kadamba transport corporation and even the horticulture corporation are running in heavy losses, due to lack of professional management.
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