Nizamabad to host regional office of spices board : Piyush Goyal

Hyderabad: Union Minister of Railways and Commerce Piyush Goyal, in the presence of Nizamabad MP, Arvind Dharmapuri, on Tuesday said, "At the request of the MP from Nizamabad, I'm delighted to announce that we have decided to upgrade the regional office at Nizamabad, Telangana. From now on, it will be designated as the regional office cum extension centre of spices board at Nizamabad. Nizamabad, known for spices like Turmeric and Chilli in particular. The regional centre will now be headed by a Deputy direct level officer who will now look after activities like promotion, exports and production and quality of the spices.

The director of marketing, the spices board will monitor the activity every month for the next two years. It will be reporting to the ministry and the directorate to ensure that in the next two years, significantly upgrade the quality, productivity and export of the spices. We hope that Turmeric and Chilli will make it the hub of spices in the future and will also look to improve the infrastructure of the spices board. This decision will have a big impact on the promotion of spices like turmeric in Telangana and in this region more so because there will be effective coordination in the Ministry of Agriculture, food processing, consumer affairs and commerce industry as they will be working together.

This is a positive step towards the promotion of turmeric. Earlier they were talking about making a turmeric board, but that would not have got the kind of powers and the coordination and inter-ministerial support that can be given now to this extension of the spices board. This will help the farmers, the small industry which is processing its products and exporting it, and especially women who are engaged in this and therefore bringing development to this region. It will also increase the income of the farmers.

We will also organize buyers-sellers meet in the area to have a direct link between the farmers and the exporters. We have grand plans for turmeric, chilli and all other spices in the region of Nizamabad, Adilabad, Karimnagar, that entire belt to develop spices like turmeric, chilli to become a mainstay of economic activity in the area.

When we make this divisional office to a regional office cum extension centre in Nizamabad, it will get almost every power of the board will be delegated due to becoming a regional office. This is to improve the future of the farmers and to increase their income and also by organizing a buyer-seller meet. They get to connect with international companies.

This will increase the quality, production and productivity of the spices and will be able to coordinate with the other ministries. It will also give pace to the turmeric cluster, which will be a crucial step. The director of the spices board will monitor the activities every month and will also present a report to me, personally."