Mangoes of special varieties like Amrapali and Mallika are being exported to the Gulf countries.
“Mallika is a rare variety which has an aroma and can beat the better known Alphonso in quality. It is so palatable that it tastes like ice cream. Our aim is to promote this new variety of mango in the Gulf countries,” said A.K Dutta, whose company has started production of fruits and vegetables in Bankura.
Two tonnes of Amrapali have already been dispatched last week to Dubai while a consignment of Mallika will be sent this Saturday.
“We are not aware if Mallika has ever been exported before from Bengal. We are starting with Dubai as a market,” Dutta said. Discussion, he said, was underway with customers in the UAE and Qatar, and infrastructure like state-of-the-art pack house and network were ready.
Dutta was sharing his plans at a workshop held at Shubhanna, the administrative building in DF Block, on export-related issues, especially challenges in export of perishable products like fruits and vegetables from West Bengal.
The workshop had been organised by the Agricultural and Precessed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), under the ministry of commerce and industry.
Export hurdles
While Dutta was bullish about his plans, another speaker, Tamal Sarkar, the joint secretary of the West Bengal Farmers Federation and Vegetable Exporters Association, shared his bitter experience.
Most of the customs inspectors are not acquainted with crops and vegetables produced in Bengal, which have high demand in foreign countries, he warned. Sarkar shared his woes last August when he booked a shipment of mixed vegetables for export to Birmingham from Calcutta.
“No container suitable for perishable commodities was provided at the Calcutta airport and all the vegetables were packed in a box normally used for luggage. The next day the consignment was containerised and sealed at Delhi airport, which caused a lot of damage to the perishable goods. It reached Birmingham in the evening but later I was informed that the container could not be opened for some technical issue.”
The problem, he said, could have been solved with the help of the Air India office at Birmingham.
“But they simply returned the shipment back to Delhi without any intimation. As a result, the buyer failed to keep his commitment. The shipment was sent to Birmingham again the next evening. When the buyer was asked to receive the shipment he had to travel 2,000 km for it. As a result of such mismanagement and negligence, the vegetables perished,” he lamented.
In his key note address, Sandeep Saha, regional head, eastern region, APEDA, said: “We need to improve quality and meet the required standards of the importing countries.”
The platform was created for face-to-face interactions with the testing laboratories and certificate issuing authorities and other allied departments so that both existing and new exporters were updated about the market, Saha said.
Owner’s pride
Mallika is known to Salt Lake residents mostly as a home-grown breed. None of the block markets The Telegraph Salt Lake visited on Wednesday stocked Mallika. Nandita Ghosh of FE Block has a Mallika tree in her ancestral home in Konnagar and calls it the queen of mangoes.
“The tree needs no special care. I go and bring some to Salt Lake when I can,” says the lady, who never planted Mallika in Salt Lake due to lack of space. “But I have an amrapali here,” she added.
The catch with Mallika is that the yield is not as abundant as Himsagar or Lyangda, says Ghosh. “This is why one hardly finds them in markets. They would be expensive. But the skin is thick and it is hardy like the Alphonso and hence, fit for export,” she says.
Agrees Dinabandhu Pramanik, a fruit seller of Baisakhi market: “It lasts at least for eight to nine days after plucking from the tree. Himsagar does not last that long and hence cannot be sent out of Bengal.”
Mallika, he said, is not cultivated commercially for sale in local markets.
“There is no demand. People may plant a tree or two at home for personal consumption,” said the man from Basirhat who has an Amrapali at home and got some to consume on Wednesday.
He had sold Mallika in earlier years but it was on request from block residents who had a bumper harvest at home and wanted to make a profit by selling a few mangoes.
Write to saltlake@abp.in