Arunachal Pradesh gets Rs 250 cr investment from oil palm company

The Centre recently announced the National Mission on Edible Oil-Oil Palm for the Northeast and Andaman

3F Oil Palm Pvt. Ltd, a leading oil palm company, has started work on its first integrated oil palm factory in Arunachal Pradesh with an initial investment of Rs 250 crores.

The ground breaking ceremony for the factory was organised at Roing in Lower Dibang Valley district on Monday.

The company, which has oil palm projects in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat has already acquired 120 acres of land for the project in February this year. "The integrated Oil palm project will consist of a state-of-the-art Oil palm factory (palm oil processing and refining plant),a zero discharge effluent plant,a power plant based on palm waste, and other buildings and godowns for support functions. This addition of this factory will supplement the existing company operations that include nursery operations, area expansion/ crop maintenance, harvesting and collection and other ancillary farmer services," the company said in a statement.

The first phase of the factory is expected to be commissioned by September next year. This will provide jobs to 300 people, it said.

The 3F Oil Palm Pvt Ltd. has an oil palm area of 2,000 hectares and would involve at least 500 farmers. "The company is the first in the state to import high-quality hybrid variety imported seedlings from various countries, for the benefit of the farmer."

CEO and Managing Director of the company, Sanjay Goenka said, "Since the plantations are at the nascent stage, our factory will start running with a very low capacity utilisation. The primary reason for expediting this investment is to build farmer confidence so that they are encouraged to take up oil palm cultivation at a large scale."
The Centre had allocated funds worth over Rs. 11,000 crores for the National Mission on Edible Oils - Oil Palm, to be implemented in the Northeast and Andaman and Nicobar islands. The mission, however, resulted in concerns among environmentalists about possible adverse impact on the ecology.

The investment, however, is considered significant in the frontier state with very less industrial activities.