A pilot neera-manufacturing and packing unit of the State Department of Horticulture has been lying idle in Thumbe on the outskirts of the city for the past three years.
If department officials are to be believed, it will be commissioned within the next two months and the sweet drink will be marketed in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts.
Neera — the non-fermented sap extracted from the inflorescence of coconut palms — is a non-alcoholic thirst quencher, high in nutritional value.
The unit was set up at an estimated Rs. 1.25 crore with funds from the State Department of Horticulture and Coconut Development Board and it was idle for two years until the department handed over it to the Palakkad Coconut Producers’ Company Ltd., an initiative of coconut growers of Kerala, in March 2014, for operation and maintenance on a trial basis.
The company manufactured and packed neera and manufactured its by-products sugar and jaggery. The agreement with the company will expire in February 2015.
The unit was set up with technology from the Central Food Technological Research Institute and the Defence Food Research Laboratory, Mysuru. The neera-tapping technology was from the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, Kasaragod.
Yogesh H.R., Deputy Director, Department of Horticulture, Dakshina Kannada, blamed the delay in its commissioning on the wait for the government’s expected neera policy. But the department has decided to commission it within two months as the Karnataka Excise Act did not prohibit its manufacture and sale in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts.
However, Sanjeeva Naik, Assistant Director of Horticulture, Bantwal, who is in charge of the unit, said the delay was the result of lack of trained tappers to sustain the unit.
He said that now three coconut growers’ federation with 3,000 members had been formed in the district and the fourth federation was in the offing. In addition, the district has about 25 toddy tappers’ cooperative societies with about 2,500 members. Now those bodies have agreed to send some members as tappers.
The company has been selling neera tapped in Kerala under the brand name PamDew in that State at Rs. 25 for a 200 ml packet, Mr. Naik said. The government is planning to market it here as a health drink by naming it ‘Kalparasa’ or by any other name, Mr. Yogesh said.
Mr. Naik said that one of the federations would obtain licence and market it on behalf of the government. They
