Take measures to regulate tobacco crop size: Goyal to Indian Tobacco Board

Time of India

8 hours ago

Guntur: Dashing the hopes of the tobacco growers, the Union commerce and industry minister
Piyush Goyal
has asked the Indian Tobacco Board to take stringent measures to regulate the crop size to avoid price fluctuations in the market.
He said that surplus production by the growers will not help anyone including the farmers.
Goyal visited the tobacco board and held discussions with the stakeholders on Sunday. He reviewed the ongoing crisis in the tobacco market with the officials and non-officials. Goyal did not announce any relief measures to alleviate the tobacco growers.
Speaking to the media, Goyal said that farmers should stick to the crop size fixed by the tobacco board in their own interest.
He said that it would be extremely difficult to manage the situation if the production went beyond the authorized stock. "The tobacco board has initiated several measures to improve the revenues of the growers in the last four years. The income of the tobacco growers have almost doubled thanks to the decent export orders and measures initiated by the board.
However, the situation has become a bit complicated during the ongoing season due to the surplus production," said Goyal.
He said that he had asked the board to be strict with regard to regulation of the production. He said that farmers would suffer if production increases beyond the fixed size.
The Union minister said that he had also held discussions with stakeholders about launching three industrial parks in the state. He said that they would kick-start Krishnapatnam industrial node very shortly while the works on other two parks-Kopparthy and Orvakal would be put on the fast track.
He said that the Centre would develop three industrial nodes with the support of the state govt.
While Kopparthy node is part of the Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC), Orvakal node is part of Hyderabad-Bangalore (HBIC) industrial corridors. Similarly, Krishnapatnam node is part of Visakhaptnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC). The total estimated cost for development of three projects is ₹7,075 crore (Kopparthy ₹2,140 crore, Orvakal ₹2,796 crore, and KRIS city ₹2,139 crore)
Goyal said that the industrial parks would play key role in attracting investments and generation of employment. He said that AP would lead the country in unleashing big development with three industrial nodes. He said that NICDP is aimed at developing world-class infrastructure and attract various industries to the proposed nodes, boosting manufacturing, trade, and employment. Union junior minister for rural development and communications Dr Pemmasani Chandrasekhar, AP industries minister TG Bharath, industries secretary Dr N Yuvaraj, officiating director of NID, Dr Tej Bharath Reddy, district collector S Nagalakshmi, tobacco board chairman Yaswanth Kumar Chidipothu, executive director Viswasree, APIIC MD M Abhishikt Kishore and senior officials from National Industrial Corridors Development Corporation (NICDC) were also present.