MSME dept to bring up aroma garden at Baruipur

Kolkata: The aroma industry is coming up in Bengal in a very big way. Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises department is setting up an aroma garden at Baruipur in South 24-Parganas. It will come up on 4 acres of land.

Another aroma industry will come up on 40 acres of land in Jhargram.

Paschimanchal Unnayan Affairs department will also assist the MSME department for success of the project.

Oil will be extracted from various plants, trees and even from the roots. Experts will identify the plants that will be planted and then the oil will be extracted.

Aroma therapy is used in beauty treatment and also to cure some diseases. Lavender, Rosemary and Lemon grass are being planted in Baruipur.

The MSME department has proposed to set up a model Aroma garden in Jhargram and senior officials of the department, along with Paschimanchal Unnayan Affairs department and Fragrance and Flavour Development Centre, (FFDC), Kannauj, along with senior officials of Jhargram district administration, visited the proposed site. FFDC is an autonomous institute under the Ministry of MSME.

Centre will provide training to the farmers. It has set up Aroma and Phyto Pharmaceutical Mission. Aroma gardens will come up on non-productive marginal wastelands situated in areas where there is water shortage or are drought-prone. It is expected that the aroma industry will absorb over a lakh people when fully operational.

Aroma gardens have already come up in J&K, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and North-Eastern states.

A preliminary survey report has suggested that in Bengal, the aroma industry has a bright future. Senior officials of FFDC, who had come to Jhargram, expressed satisfaction over the enthusiasm among the farmers to grow aromatic plants.