As part of the State government’s plans to establish agriculture and food processing industries on a large scale, a delegation led by Agriculture Minister S. Niranjan Reddy visited a peanut butter making unit at Oran in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat on Saturday.
During his Gujarat visit, the Minister stated that Telangana was known for quality and aflatoxin-free groundnut production after Gujarat, where peanut based food processing industries were in large numbers. Establishment of food processing industries would not only add value to the farm produce but would also increase the income of farmers, he said, adding that there is a huge demand in the international market for aflatoxin-free peanut.
Earlier, Mr. Niranjan Reddy visited the IFFCO plant at Kalol in Gandhinagar district and felicitated scientist Ramesh Ralia, who developed liquid (nano) urea with the help of biotechnology. Mr. Ralia had worked in the US in the field of biotechnology for 7 years and returned to India to develop liquid urea after 3 years of hard work, he said.
The Minister stated that 500 ml liquid urea available at ₹240 would be sufficient for one acre by spraying it after mixing with 127 litres of water and it would save a lot of money for government on fertilizer subsidy. The Kalol unit of IFFCO had the capacity to produce 1.5 lakh nano urea bottles every day.
He appealed to the management of IFFCO to establish a nano urea plant in South Telangana as Jamm-Kanyakumari and Mumbai-Vijayawada highways pass through the State and the product made here could be easily sent to Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and several other States.
Vice-chairman of IFFCO Dilip Sangania, Kalol unit head Deepak Inamdar, GM Ramesh Ralia and others took the Minister around the unit.
