India: Tobacco Board Sets Rs.7,000-cr Export Target

Source from:  The Hindu 05/20/2014

After achieving a record of exporting tobacco worth Rs. 6,000 crore last fiscal, the Tobacco Board has fixed an ambitious export target of Rs. 7,000 crore for this financial year.

"Thanks to conducive market condition, we were able to boost the exports by Rs. 1,000 crore in the previous year. We will be able to achieve the Rs. 7,000 crore export target this fiscal with the Board's efforts to educate farmers on production of the much sought-after clean tobacco paying dividends," a confident Board Chairman K.Gopal told the here on Monday night.

E-auction
Earlier, he reviewed the progress of ongoing e-auctions of the crop in Ongole region which accounts for 90 million kg of the total crop size of 172 million kg in Andhra Pradesh that was fixed in the last cropping season. Meanwhile, the Board is planning to engage Global Positioning System (GPS) by the next cropping season to monitor the crop condition remotely and go for early intervention at the field level. "We are also on the process of webcasting of the proceedings at all the auction platforms in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka for efficient monitoring," Mr. Gopal said.

Better price for farmers
Giving more details, he said the auctions would be completed by July-end, adding that farmers would be able to get a better average price of Rs.121 per kg this year as there was more demand for the low and medium grade tobacco.

"Over 40 per cent of the produce has been marketed so far. In some platforms, the figure has gone up to 50 per cent," Tobacco Board Regional Manager G. Bhaskar Reddy said. A new auction platform is under construction at Kanigiri to ease the pressure on the Ongole-I platform, he added. Enditem