SHIMLA -19^th November, 2024-The 216th meeting of the Board of Drectors and 40th Annual General Meeting (AGM) HPMC was held today. Revenue and Horticulture Minister Jagat Singh Negi chaired the meeting.

He said that HPMC has very efficiently carried out the MIS apple procurement operations in its 200 apple collection centers in the state. This year about 25.000 Metric tonne apple was procured by HPMC through online MIS portal and most of it was processed to produce about 2000 metric tonne (20 lakh litre) of Apple Juice Concentrate (AJC). Further, by avoiding the auction of Grade-C apples in an open market, HPMC prevented environmental pollution caused during the auction of Grade-C apples in Parwanoo. It was also agreed to send proposal to the Government to rationalize the number of Apple collection centers and HPMC shall be only agency conducting MIS procurement operations in the state of behalf of the State Government.

The Minister said that the board has decided to develop HPMC's properties in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai on PPP model. The development of HPMC land in Kolkata was in advanced stage and it has been decided to explore utilization of Rajgarh and Patlikuhl properties of HPMC for capping Agri/Horticulture Tourism potential. Further it was proposed to strategize and prepare plans for full utilization of seven Controlled Atmosphere (CA) stores and 10 Grading & Packing (GP) lines.

The board also conveyed its approval for the agreement to be signed between HPMC and M/s Geotropy India Pvt Ltd for establishment of Geothermal energy based Cold Store at Tapri in Kinnaur with a capacity of 500 MT.

It was also apprised that HPMC is soon going to launch apple wine from its newly commissioned fruit processing plant at Parala, in district Shimla and fruit processing plant, Jarol, at Sundernagar in district Mandi. Further, HPMC is also launching it's Ready to Serve (RTS), apple juice from Parala plant.

Discussions were held on the various activities of HPMC with special focus on the expansion of services of HPMC in the interest of horticulturists and farmers of the state. The board was apprised that from this year onwards, HPMC is providing best quality branded products/input items at reasonable rates to benefit the farmers.