Raw material bank set up for cashew units

Jagannath Cashew Cluster Private Limited, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed by several members of the Ganjam cashew cluster has set up a Raw Material Bank (RMB) with cold storage facilities near the cluster area at Rambha in Ganjam district.

The RMB project has been financed by Axis Bank under its Commodity Banking System where the cashew growers can avail loan up to 70 per cent of the total value of the commodity.

“The raw material bank will help the cashew growers to store their products during the non-peak season and also arrest the distress sale of cashew nuts” said Jagamohan Panda, one of the directors of the company.

The RMB was recently inaugurated by Sidhant Mohapatra, the local MP, at Sabualia village within the cluster premises. Renubala Pradhan, Rajya Sabha MP and Nityananda Pradhan, MP from the Aska Lok Sabha constituency and several MLAs of Ganjam district were also present on the occasion.

Ganjam is one of the major cashew growing districts in the state and the state government has formed a cashew cluster bringing together the owners of different cashew processing units.

The other cashew growing districts are Puri, Khurda, Gajapati, Dhenkanal, Cuttack, Keonjhar, Koraput and Nabarangapur.

Orissa produces around 90,000 tonnes of raw cashew per annum.

There are 250 cashew processing units in the state with a crushing capacity of 75,000 tonnes per annum, but only 50,000 metric tonnes of cashew are actually crushed in these units.

“The cashew production figures suggest that Orissa is a raw material surplus state for cashew processing, but unfortunately the processing units have imported about 10,000 tonnes of cashew in the past two years. This is because there is no storage facility in the state and raw cashew produced during the harvest season, is mostly procured by the processing units of other states”, said Panda.

Orissa accounts for 13.5 per cent of cashew production in the country. The cashew processing sector creates an employment of 30 lakh man days per annum while the value addition is estimated at Rs 60 crore, said sources.

As the cashew processing units are flourishing units, the Jagannath Cashew Private Limited planned to set up a Common Facility Centre.

Under this CFC, the company aimed to set up a packaging centre, a production and training centre for the cashew cultivators as well as a research and development centre.

Besides, the company also wanted to set up the by-product processing centre. The by-products of the cashew processing industry include cashew nut shell liquid and the cashew husk.