SHILLONG: The jackfruit with its varied cuisine is set to enter the menu of hotels and eateries in Meghalaya before it moves out of the state to enter the global market, said Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Monday.
Addressing a gathering at the launch of the Jackfruit Mission at Hotel Pinewood, Sangma emphasised that the objective of the MDA government is to empower farmers.
Invitees to the launch, where an eclectic range of dishes prepared from jackfruit were laid out, testified to the humungous possibility of this vegetable-fruit becoming a money spinner for its growers. The jackfruit is ubiquitous to Meghalaya. The Mission to make Jackfruit a multi-cuisine fruit-vegetable was first launched on July 5 last where the potential of the fruit was amply demonstrated by chefs of the Institute of Hotel Management (IHM), Shillong.
On Monday, the recently created Directorate of Food Processing came up with a booklet titled, “Mission Jackfruit.”
Sangma released the booklet in the presence of the Director NABARD and Additional Chief Secretary in charge Agriculture, Horticulture, among others, KN Kumar. The booklet lists out detailed action plans for popularising jackfruit through a mission mode approach.
An enthusiastic Sangma said, “In Garo Hills you will find fruit a Jackfruit and a mango tree in every home but we never knew its potential until we discovered the range of cuisines that are possible from this fruit cum vegetable. If it’s possible to make such delicious cookies and biscuits we should make this our state snack when serving tea at all government offices, hotels and corporate establishments and tourist sites.”
Citing from the book, “The Indian Superfoods” by Aayushi Namdev, a bestseller, Sangma said after July 5 when jackfruit became a talking point in Meghalaya he received several calls from friends in India and abroad asking how the state proposed to cash in on this readymade asset.
“One advantage of the Jackfruit is that it is climate resilient and not easily perishable apart from being closest to met in terms of texture. The Directorate for Food processing was created mainly to fill the gap in food processing. However the Government can only create the eco-system, provide training, lay down policies. To succeed in its mission, entrepreneurs and self help groups have to be major stakeholders. That is why we have created an award for the entrepreneur of the month to motivate individuals and groups to become successful entrepreneurs,” Sangma said.
Lauding the effort of the Meghalaya Institute of Entrepreneurship led by BK Sohliya, the Chief Minister said he has doubled the budget of MIE after seeing the efforts being made to train entrepreneurs in various fields. “Funds are scarce hence we should be able to get maximum returns from minimum investment,” Conrad Sangma said.
This was followed by a luncheon comprising jackfruit biryani and a plethora of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes with jackfruit as the base. From delicious curries to salads, pickles, cookies, halwas and a range of confectionaries, it was a royal treat and jackfruit made its presence loud and clear.
“In this global vegan revolution, Jackfuit could well be the food of choice as it is closest in taste to meat,” said Mr KN Kumar adding, “since there is a 600% increase in vegan population across the world we expect the Jackfruit to hit even the global the market because of its high nutritional and medicinal value.”
Grown organically and requiring very little tending, Kumar said at least 200 recipes are possible from the Jackfruit and that was amply demonstrated on Monday at the launch of the Jackfruit Mission.
Kumar informed the gathering that an investment of Rs 67 crore over a period of five year (2018-2023) was needed to give the Jackfruit Mission a fillip. Of this only Rs 27 crore would be invested by the State Government while the rest Rs 40 crore would come from KFW and the CLAMP fund. The expenditure would include capacity building and two techno incubation centres, one each in Khasi and Garo Hills. About two hundred home-scale nano enterprises would be set up to enable women to work from home.
