Works for an international flower auction centre at Moranapalli revenue village have commenced at the project site at Marasandiram.
To coincide with it, a Farmers’ Producers Organisation has been formed with farmers from four flower-growing blocks of Thally, Hosur, Kelamangalam and Shoolagiri, said Bala Siva Prasad, president of Hosur Small Farmers Association and one of the directors of the National Horticulture Board.
“Each block has five members, and each member will have 25 farmers, whose quality and quantity monitoring will be the responsibility of the member,” he said.
Three meetings were organised from the stakeholders’ side to ramp up the quality and quantity capabilities of the growers here. The stakeholders committee will put in place three levels of quality control - at the farm level, unloading point and the auction hall.
The center being built at a cost of ₹20.20 crore will have an auction hall, two large cold storages, a pre-cooling unit, a grading and packing unit, refrigerated trucks, parking lot, an administrative office, conference hall, a training center, and 18 shops.
The centre at Moranapalli will be the country’s first online auction center, that will enable buyers to bid for flowers both online and offline based on the Dutch auction clock. This envisions software enabled price moderations based on demand, eliminating human interventions and middle-men. The flower will be captured on a very high-resolution camera as it comes out of cold storage and based on the images price is determined setting off the bids.
“A buyer in Coimbatore can bid online and the sellers will ensure the flowers are delivered to the buyer’s location,” said Mr. Siva Prasad. Once the auction centre comes into operation, growers of Bengaluru are also expected to use the facility.
“The engineering team met with the farmers and we are happy with the design. Since the auction market will be constructed and handed over to the stakeholders, we need to be prepared to take over once the infrastructure is handed over to us to keep up to the world-class standards,” he says.
The centre is being set up with a capacity to auction five lakh flowers with expandable capacity. For now, Krishnagiri Floriculture Committee has requested inclusion of power backup with solar power and green energy. The proposal is under consideration, said Mr. Siva Prasad. The construction works are scheduled for completion in 12 to 14 months.
