Kerala mulls rubber factory in PPP mode to help growers

Kerala, which accounts for 82 per cent of the country's rubber production, could soon have a factory in PPP mode to manufacture value added products from rubber latex.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday directed that an expert committee be set up to study the prospects of setting up such a factory in the model of the country's first public-private funded international airport - Cochin International Airport Limited.

Vijayan asked Chief Secretary K.M. Abraham to look into the issue, after presiding over a meeting of cabinet colleagues and high ranking officials.

Such a factory has been one of the long standing demands of the rubber farming community in Kerala.

Kerala has hundreds of rubber cooperative societies which collect the rubber latex from farmers and supply it to big rubber factories in the private sector. Vijayan has asked to examine if these cooperatives can be turned into the lines of the Amul model of cooperatives in Gujarat.

Rubber production has been hit by falling price, affecting the livelihoods of close to a million growers and their families in the state. The price per kilogram of natural rubber has been hovering around the Rs 100 mark, a dip from the over Rs 200 it fetched a few years back.

--IANS

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