Vadakara: The Coconut Development Board has drawn up plans worth ₹235 crore for this fiscal year to overcome the setbacks in coconut cultivation and production. The assistance provided by the Board for various projects will be utilised to start coconut cultivation on a large scale across 12,000 hectares.

Yield-enhancing projects will be implemented over 26,000 hectares.

Last year, the Board received ₹175 crore as the Central share. This time, it has received ₹60 crore more. Although Kerala is ahead of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in terms of cultivation, its yield ranks third and remains below the national average. The national average is 9,871 coconuts per hectare, whereas in Kerala it is 7,211. The yield enhancement project will be implemented over 8,500 hectares in Kerala.

The assistance will be increased tenfold

Assistance of around ₹56,000 will be provided for up to two hectares in two instalments for new cultivation. Earlier, assistance of ₹40 per sapling was provided; now it is ₹350. Assistance for increasing yield stands at ₹42,000 per hectare, also to be given in two instalments. This will be implemented on a cluster basis through farmer groups. Although the target is 26,000 hectares, the Board has already received applications for 40,000 hectares.

Under the coconut cultivation revival plan, assistance of ₹32,000 will be provided for cutting down 32 coconut trees in one hectare. The maximum assistance previously provided under the Board’s Technology Mission project to produce value-added products from coconut was ₹50 lakh. This has now been increased to ₹3 crore. There is also a plan to make available funding of ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore to public sector institutions for research.

This year, 2.5 lakh saplings will be made available in Kerala through public sector nurseries. The Board will provide 50 per cent of the total cost of setting up coconut seed production gardens in both private and public sectors, with a maximum of ₹7.20 lakh to be given to an individual entity.

There is also a plan to set up decentralised nurseries to make coconut saplings available at all locations. If ₹4 was earlier paid to produce a seedling, now ₹45 will be paid.