Godrej plans palm oil unit in Orissa

Godrej Agrovet Limited (GAL), a Godrej Group company, will invest about Rs 12 crore in the next three years in Orissa's Ganjam district to set up a palm oil processing plant and to raise the oil palm plantation.

The palm oil processing plant will involve an investment of Rs 7.50 crore and have an installed capacity of 5 tonne an hour. Another Rs 4.50 to Rs 5 crore will be spent on setting up a nursery to produce high-yielding varieties of plant species, payment of subsidy and creating awareness about oil palm cultivation.

GAL, the country's leading palm oil processing company, plans to raise the area under oil palm cultivation in Ganjam and Gajapati districts to 3000 hectares in the next three years.

It will start production from the proposed plant from 2010, B. Ravindra Rao, manager, Orissa unit told the Business Standard.

GAL had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Orissa government on February 27 to set up the palm oil processing unit in Ganjam and to motivate the farmers to cultivate oil palm.

The Ganjam plant will be the company's third such unit, after operational plants in Andhra Pradesh and Goa. The company is also planning to set up processing plants in Karnataka, Gujarat and Mizoram.

GAL will raise two nurseries at Balarampur in Gajapati district and Pital in Ganjam district to provide high-yielding plants to the farmers in these two districts.

Out of the 67,000 hectares under oil palm cultivation in the country, GAL is cultivating oil palm in 13,000 hectares in six states including Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Goa and Mizoram, Rao said. The company is treating the Ganjam project on priority as it has committed to start operations from 2010.

Besides GAL, the Orissa government has signed MoUs with three other companies for setting up palm oil processing units.

While M Laxmi Balaji will set up a plant at Rayagada, M Foods Facts and Fertilizer and Ruchi Soya will set up plants at Dhenkanal and Balesore respectively.

The company recently apprised the farmers of the advantages of oil palm cultivation and its methodology.