PAGREXO plans five pack houses in Punjab

Chandigarh: The Punjab Agri Export Corporation Ltd (PAGREXO) plans to set up five pack houses across the state for grading and packaging agricultural and horticultural products with a project cost of about Rs 5 crore.

The project is likely to be completed in six to eight months.

The company has entrusted Blue Star Ltd for the project.

The corporation would soon sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the company.

The five pack houses would come up across the state at Mushkabad (Ludhiana), Saholi and Lalgarh (Patiala), Kangmai (Hoshiarpur) and Babri (Gurdaspur), after floating tenders for the project.

The sites for the location of fruit and vegetable pack house centres has been identified based on the progressive growers in the area, area under cultivation, potential for increase in area under fruits and vegetables, access to markets and efforts made towards distant marketing and exports.

The state government has got a nod from Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) for setting up five pack houses and a grant of Rs 5.35 crore as the cost of the project. Each Pack House would be spread across 0.5 acres and will have mechanical grading line, pre-cooling chamber, cold storage, a reefer van and a pick-up van.