The Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has extended the dates for the submission of the proposal for setting up integrated value chain development projects for tomato, onion and potato (TOP) under the Operation Green scheme. The interested parties can now submit their proposals online until noon to the ministry on March 15, 2019.

A notice in this regard was issued by the ministry, stating that the date, which was earlier set for January 31, had been extended. It read, “This is reference to the advertisement notice published in various newspapers on November 10, 2018 inviting proposal from potential promoters/investors for setting up integrated value chain development projects for tomato, onion, and potato in identified clusters under Operation Green.”

A ministry official said, “It was done based on the request received from the investors and entrepreneurs that time should be given them to which the MoFPI responded positively and extended the time till noon on March 15.”

The Government of India, in November 2018, approved the Central sector scheme Operation Green, aimed at integrated development of value chain for the commodities, tomato, onion and potato.

For this, a budget of Rs 500 crore has been approved for the fiscal years 2018-19 and 2019-20 to be disbursed in two installments. In the first year, Rs 200 crore shall be allocated, while Rs 300 crore is kept for the second year’s spending.

The projects under this scheme shall include making of farmer producer organisations in various parts of the country along with provisions of agri logistics, processing facilities and professional management.

Another area of the TOP scheme was to add value addition to increase the shelf life of the product as well as enhance the value addition. Also, the scheme emphasises the creation of a market intelligence network to collate real-time data on demand and supply to check the localised gluts of TOP crops.

NAFED (National Agriculture Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd) will be the nodal agency for the price stabilisation measures, which will create an e-platform for demand and supply management of TOP crops based on market intelligence inputs.

Under the scheme the clusters for tomato production include Chittoor and Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh, Kolar and Chikkaballapur in Karnataka, Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar in Odisha and Sabarkantha in Gujarat.

For onions, the clusters are Nashik in Maharastra, Gadag and Dharwad in Karnataka, Bhavnagar and Amreli in Gujarat and Nalanda in Bihar, and for potatoes, they are Agra, Firozabad, Hathras, Aligarh, Farrukhabad and Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh, Hooghly and Purba Bardhman in West Bengal, Nalanda in Bihar and Banaskantha and Sabarkantha in Gujarat.