KOCHI: The Union government has given in-principle clearance to the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (KINFRA) for setting up a spices processing cluster at Thodupuzha in Idukki district. The estimated cost of the project is Rs 12.50 crore excluding the land price. The project coming up in 15 acres will have 20 developed plots for allotment to SME spice food processing units covering about 10.5 acres. The park will have common facilities like telecommunication/ cyber centre/documentation centre/raw material storage facility, marketing outlets, cafeteria and a conference room.
The project will be funded through the Rs 6 crore available under the infrastructure development scheme of the union government and the remaining from the state government and KINFRA. A detailed project report (DPR) for the proposed park will be sent to the central government to obtain its final approval soon, a KINFRA official said on Thursday. The park will be mainly for processing and value addition of spices and spice products, offering processing facilities at par with the international standards.
The crop-specific spices park is part of the efforts to have an integrated operation for encouraging post- harvesting, processing for value addition, packaging, storage and exports of spices and spice products by meeting the quality specifications of the consuming countries. India is the largest producer, consumer and exporter of spices in the world. India produces more than 65 spices in different varieties out of the 109 spices listed by ISO.
