Coconut Development Board (CDB) today cleared 30 projects across four states with an outlay of Rs 87.97-crore with a subsidy of Rs 11.15 crore.
A meeting of the Project Approval Committee (PAC) on Technology Mission on Coconut (TMOC) held here has approved three research projects, one project on pest and disease management and 26 projects on processing and product diversification. These would come up in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
Out of 26 projects on processing and product diversification, 12 projects were exclusively on Neera processing and packing units.
All the coconut producing companies of Kerala registered with CDB submitted their project proposal on processing of Neera and value-added products, and were sanctioned with an outlay of Rs 59.82 crore covering a subsidy of Rs 6 crore.
The output of Neera expected from these units is 147,000 litres per day, of which 60 per cent will be processed and packed as nutritious natural Neera drink and 40 per cent as Neera honey, sugar and other value-added products, said TK Jose, chairman of CDB.
Three integrated coconut processing units, six desiccated coconut powder manufacturing units, one coconut chips unit, one ball copra unit, two coconut shell charcoal units and one coconut shell-based activated carbon unit have been sanctioned.
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