The National Horticulture Board (NHB) has released revised composite guidelines of the Cluster Development Programme to address challenges such as high post-harvest losses, inadequate supply chain infrastructure, and price fluctuations in domestic markets. It has also invited an expression of interest (EoI) to appoint implementing agencies for the cluster development programme.
The selected agencies will be responsible for development of both components — high-value multi-commodity horticulture clusters and peri-urban vegetable clusters, said NHB in the EoI document.
NHB had designed and implemented a pilot programme in 2021 for horticulture crops and based on the results, it has redesigned the Cluster Developed Programme (CDP), which officials said will make these clusters globally competitive.
The Peri-Urban Vegetable Clusters have been conceived to address the inefficiency in the supply chain that has resulted in extreme price volatility in the retail prices of fruits and vegetables, especially in tomato, onion and potato (TOP) in urban centres like Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.
The government said that vegetable supply chains feeding the urban/peri-urban centres are not robust due to no direct linkage of farmers with consumers leading to improper crop planning, absence of supply and demand forecasting and crop production’s conformance to good agricultural practices (like minimal use of safe pesticides or insecticides), presence of large number of intermediaries, high distribution costs and wastages.
Through a central sector scheme, with ₹2,000-crore investment, spread over five years, the Centre proposes to facilitate the development of vegetables within a vicinity of 50-100 km (≤50km for population <10 lakh, ≤80km for population of 10-15 lakh and ≤100km for population >15 lakh) of the urban centres. The scheme will be implemented in a phased manner across the country aiming to mitigate price volatility in fruits and vegetables including TOP crops.
The implementing agency shall ensure that at least 50 per cent of the total annual off take of the produce for supply in the cities under the project shall be produced by the farmers within the identified cluster boundaries. However, in addition to TOP crops, the cluster must have at least ten other horticulture crops, though it may add more fruits and vegetables in the list.
On the other hand, projects for high-value multi-commodity clusters (HMCs) under the redesigned CDP scheme, will be selected on a challenge mode where no prior identification of clusters will be done by the authority. “Interested and eligible parties will identify clusters, demonstrate feasibility and viability of the proposed cluster within the larger framework provided in the detailed guideline and as outlined in the EoI document,” NHB said.
Projects may also be proposed for development of existing clusters or for induced clusters (for crops not currently being cultivated in the area/geography identified by the applicant), it said.
A horticulture cluster under HMCs refers to a specific regional or geographical concentration whether existing or induced, of targeted one or more crops and it provides opportunities for specialization in various stages of the horticultural value chain, including but not limited to production, post-harvest management, marketing, and exports.
The government has also fixed minimum annual farm gate value (FGV) of the identified focus crop within the cluster at minimum Rs 100 crore. The FGV may be calculated under a formula –acreage×productivity×price, NHB said.
Some experts said that there are several crops which have potential to be grown in many parts, and are not necessarily grown in a geography, so the Rs 100 crore criteria should have been avoided. There are several horticulture clusters developed automatically, long before the CDP scheme, when farmers select a crop based on results of another farmer’s innovation and government scheme like CDP should facilitate innovation rather than limiting scope, a former senior agriculture scientist of ICAR said.
However, the guidelines can also be revised any time as per the policy directions from the agriculture ministry, sources said. There is a Guideline and Cost Norm Committee, headed by the additional secretary in charge of horticulture in the agriculture ministry and Managing Director of NHB its Member Secretary. Other members of the committee are some particular officials dealing with horticulture in both agriculture and food processing ministries, as well as deputy director general (DDG, Horticulture) of ICAR.
Officials said that though India has achieved record production of horticulture crops — at 352.23 million tonnes in 2023-24, in which share of vegetables is 58 per cent and fruits is 32 per cent, it has not been matched by developments in supply chain management leading to high price volatility.
Published on April 21, 2025
The National Horticulture Board (NHB) has released revised composite guidelines of the Cluster Development Programme to address challenges such as high post-harvest losses, inadequate supply chain infrastructure, and price fluctuations in domestic markets. It has also invited an expression of interest (EoI) to appoint implementing agencies for the cluster development programme.
The selected agencies will be responsible for development of both components — high-value multi-commodity horticulture clusters and peri-urban vegetable clusters, said NHB in the EoI document.
NHB had designed and implemented a pilot programme in 2021 for horticulture crops and based on the results, it has redesigned the Cluster Developed Programme (CDP), which officials said will make these clusters globally competitive.
The Peri-Urban Vegetable Clusters have been conceived to address the inefficiency in the supply chain that has resulted in extreme price volatility in the retail prices of fruits and vegetables, especially in tomato, onion and potato (TOP) in urban centres like Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.
The government said that vegetable supply chains feeding the urban/peri-urban centres are not robust due to no direct linkage of farmers with consumers leading to improper crop planning, absence of supply and demand forecasting and crop production’s conformance to good agricultural practices (like minimal use of safe pesticides or insecticides), presence of large number of intermediaries, high distribution costs and wastages.
Through a central sector scheme, with ₹2,000-crore investment, spread over five years, the Centre proposes to facilitate the development of vegetables within a vicinity of 50-100 km (≤50km for population <10 lakh, ≤80km for population of 10-15 lakh and ≤100km for population >15 lakh) of the urban centres. The scheme will be implemented in a phased manner across the country aiming to mitigate price volatility in fruits and vegetables including TOP crops.
The implementing agency shall ensure that at least 50 per cent of the total annual off take of the produce for supply in the cities under the project shall be produced by the farmers within the identified cluster boundaries. However, in addition to TOP crops, the cluster must have at least ten other horticulture crops, though it may add more fruits and vegetables in the list.
On the other hand, projects for high-value multi-commodity clusters (HMCs) under the redesigned CDP scheme, will be selected on a challenge mode where no prior identification of clusters will be done by the authority. “Interested and eligible parties will identify clusters, demonstrate feasibility and viability of the proposed cluster within the larger framework provided in the detailed guideline and as outlined in the EoI document,” NHB said.
Projects may also be proposed for development of existing clusters or for induced clusters (for crops not currently being cultivated in the area/geography identified by the applicant), it said.
A horticulture cluster under HMCs refers to a specific regional or geographical concentration whether existing or induced, of targeted one or more crops and it provides opportunities for specialization in various stages of the horticultural value chain, including but not limited to production, post-harvest management, marketing, and exports.
The government has also fixed minimum annual farm gate value (FGV) of the identified focus crop within the cluster at minimum Rs 100 crore. The FGV may be calculated under a formula –acreage×productivity×price, NHB said.
Some experts said that there are several crops which have potential to be grown in many parts, and are not necessarily grown in a geography, so the Rs 100 crore criteria should have been avoided. There are several horticulture clusters developed automatically, long before the CDP scheme, when farmers select a crop based on results of another farmer’s innovation and government scheme like CDP should facilitate innovation rather than limiting scope, a former senior agriculture scientist of ICAR said.
However, the guidelines can also be revised any time as per the policy directions from the agriculture ministry, sources said. There is a Guideline and Cost Norm Committee, headed by the additional secretary in charge of horticulture in the agriculture ministry and Managing Director of NHB its Member Secretary. Other members of the committee are some particular officials dealing with horticulture in both agriculture and food processing ministries, as well as deputy director general (DDG, Horticulture) of ICAR.
Officials said that though India has achieved record production of horticulture crops — at 352.23 million tonnes in 2023-24, in which share of vegetables is 58 per cent and fruits is 32 per cent, it has not been matched by developments in supply chain management leading to high price volatility.
Published on April 21, 2025
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The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution
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