Steps are being taken to revive the cashew sector on the basis of the report of an expert committee constituted by the State government, Minister for Industries P. Rajeeve has said.
Replying to a calling attention motion by Kovoor Kunjumon, MLA, on addressing problems faced by cashew workers and reopening closed private cashew factories in the State, the Minister said a ₹30-crore package that had been announced for the sector included ₹20 crore for remitting employers’ share of employees’ PF and ESI commitments, ₹5 crore for modernisation of shelling operations, and ₹5 crore for the private sector to create a women-friendly workplace. Applications were already being received, the Minister said.
The Minister said the import duty on raw nuts that was imposed by the Union government, drop in production in the State, and high production costs had brought the cashew sector to its knees in the past decade. To address this, the government had taken some steps which had brought about some change. In the past financial year, 14,000 tonnes of raw nuts had been imported, the highest in recent times. The government had given a financial aid of ₹293.31 crore for this. This year too, ₹40.81 crore had been earmarked for import of raw nuts.
As many as 138 work days had been provided in factories under the Kerala State Cashew Development Corporation (KSCDC) and 156 in Kerala State Cashew Workers Apex Industrial Cooperative Society (Capex).
The government was also providing small and medium cashew units that were functioning in March 2020 and in existence now financial aid of up to ₹40 lakh. This could be 40% of the cost for acquiring permanent assets for general category and 10% additional aid, subject to a maximum of ₹40 lakh, as capital grant for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the youth, and the differently abled.
The government had sanctioned ₹2.69 crore for extending interest subvention of 50%, up to a maximum of ₹10 lakh, on the interest repaid by cashew units on loans over their working capital.
The Minister said that banks had agreed to write off interest on loans of up to ₹2 crore under a one-time settlement if ₹1 crore was repaid. For loans between ₹2 crore and ₹10 crore, only 60% of the loan need be repaid, with initial repayment of 10%. Though the scheme had been lauded and the response from most banks was favourable, most cashew factories were unable to pay the initial 10% even. This was the reason it had been extended to December 31 this year, Mr. Rajeeve said.
The Minister said minimum wages in the sector had been hiked by 23% following the demand of trade unions on the basis of the minimum wages committee constituted to revise the minimum wages of workers in the sector. This though was pushing some private factories to the brink of closure, the Minister pointed out.
