KDCCB provides loan for toddy trees growth

JAGTIAL: In order to encourage local artisans and provide employment opportunities to the traditional trades in the rural areas, the Karimnagar District cooperative central bank (DCCB) has emerged as unique bank in the Telangana State to provide financial assistance to raise the toddy trees in Anthargaon village of Jagtial rural mandal.

Around 120 toddy-tappers of the village have formed into a toddy-tappers cooperative society in the village and decided to raise the toddy trees. Accordingly, they procured around 40 acres of land in the village and planted over 6,000 toddy palm saplings with the support of prohibition and excise department under the NREGS programme. Still they wanted to raise more toddy saplings and other allied business activities of the toddy to increase their income.

They approached the local Karimnagar district cooperative central bank in Jagtial town seeking loan for further development of the toddy orchard. The bank had readily agreed to provide the required financial assistance of Rs 40 lakhs and handed over the same at a programme organised near the toddy orchard in Anthargaon village on Tuesday. Incidentally, the tappers society would be opening a 'Neera bar' at a cost of Rs 10 lakhs of the bank loan to supply pure palm sap.

Konduru Ravinder Rao, chairman of Karimnagar DCCB, TSCAB, NAFSCOB, Jagtial legislator Dr M Sanjay Kumar, ZP chairperson Dava Vasantha, Collector G Ravi Naik, bank CEO N Satyanarayana Rao and others participated in the programme of handing over the cheque to the toddy tappers cooperative society. The Karimnagar DCCB had also treated the raising toddy saplings as horticulture and reduced the interest rate from 13 per cent to 12 per cent.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Ravinder Rao said that they had provided financial assistance to the toddy tappers cooperative society to create local employment in the rural areas and also motivating the farmers towards regulated farming instead of taking up paddy crop alone. Assuring further assistance to the toddy society for the expansion of their business, he informed them to take other activities along with extracting the palm sap to the production of palm jaggery and other products of the palm tree having high medicinal values. He also informed the local tappers to raise nurseries in their village and hand over the saplings to the fellow tappers to increase the toddy production in the state.

Jagtial legislator M Sanjay Kumar said that they had taken up plantation of over 29 lakh toddy saplings in the district to provide employment to the toddy tappers as well as increase the production of palm sap, which was having high demand.

He informed the tappers to supply toddy of pure quality without any adulteration to win over the confidence of their customers. The other speakers such as district library chairman Chandrashekhar Goud, toddy tappers society chairman Laxman Goud, former ZPTC member Jitender Rao have empowered the toddy tappers about the importance of providing quality toddy without doing any adulteration to the customers.

They also said that the tappers should purchase a steel tanker vehicle of 5,000 litres of capacity to transport the toddy produced in the village to Hyderabad which was having high demand.