Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman speaking after inaugurating a Farmers Training and Common Facility Centre for Agro Processing at Baddepalli village in Gurmitkal taluk of Yadgir district on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has suggested to the district administration and the authorities concerned to take initiatives and extend coordination to strengthen activities at Common Facility Centres to empower women involved and develop market through district-specific agro-processing units.She was addressing a gathering after inaugurating a Farmers Training and Common Facility Centre (FT-CFC) for Agro Processing at Baddepalli village in Gurmitkal taluk of Yadgir district on Thursday.The FT-CFC has been established through funds released under the Member of Parliament Local Area Development (MP-LAD) scheme and also financial support from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and implemented by the Baddepalli Women’s Farmer Producer Company Limited at Baddepalli village.“The centre is set to manufacture a range of products, including cleaned peanuts, roasted and salted peanuts, peanut butter, peanut oil and de-oiled cake, and also to focus on strengthening groundnut value chains by enhancing processing, branding and market connectivity, thereby increasing farmers income and generating local employment opportunities and improving market access for farmers through district-specific agro-processing initiatives,” she explained.Ms. Sitharaman said that Yadgir has been chosen for this initiative due to its substantial groundnut production, which is around 22,500 tonnes per year, and its advantageous connectivity with Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and within Karnataka.The centre began functioning six months ago. However, only 15% of its total capacity has been utilised so far despite the availability of enough human resources, financial aid and also cooperation from the State government.She suspected the involvement of middlemen in transporting groundnut to outside markets instead of the centre. She said that Yadgir district will gain a name in groundnut processing like Chittoor district, which is famous for mango. Therefore, the district administration should pay attention to taking initiatives to ensure enough produce at the centre, she added.Apart from ITC Limited, the products are sold through multiple channels such as kirana stores, supermarkets, self-help groups (SHGs), restaurants, malls and digital platforms, including Amazon.Discussions are ongoing with organised retail chains to expand market reach, she said.Before taking a break for her 35-minute speech in multiple languages like Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and English, Ms. Sitharaman said that the Finance Ministry aimed to establish a total of seven similar units in the Kalyan Karnataka Region and Yadgir was the fourth one.Sanjay Lohia of the Department of Financial Services Under the Finance Ministry, Chairman of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) Shaji Krishnan, Secretary to Agriculture Department Captain A. Rajendra and Chairman and Managing Director of ITC Limited Sanjeev Puri also spoke.MLA Sharanagouda Kandkur, Deputy Commissioner Rahul Pandve, Chief Executive Officer of Zilla Panchayat Lavish Ordia, Superintendent of Police Pruthvik Shankar, Officials of NABARD, Kalandar Mulla and others were present. Published - June 04, 2026 07:17 pm IST
