Centre turns down State’s plea for Spices Board

New Delhi: The Centre has once again categorically denied a Spices Board for Telangana State and instead, advised the State government to seek the help of Spices Board (Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India) and its support in establishing a Spice Park for turmeric.

In her reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman, said here on Wednesday that the Spices Board would extend all technical support if land and funds for establishing the spice park were made available by the State.

The Union government had also approved the setting up of a Spice Development Agency (SDA) for Telangana State with its headquarters at Warangal for co-coordinating with the State / Central agencies in implementing programmes for research, production, marketing, quality improvement and export of spices, including chilli and turmeric.

The Spices Board was implementing the ‘Export Oriented Production, Export Development & Promotion of Spices’ Scheme, wherein, assistance was provided to spices farmers which, inter alia, included development of infrastructure for common processing facilities in Spice Parks,

adaptation of upgraded technology in spice processing, setting up of quality evaluation laboratories for sampling and testing of the export consignments for meeting quality specifications of consuming countries, assistance to farmers on post-harvest quality improvement, imparting training to farmers in good agricultural practices, etc, she added.