Bhubaneswar: A Rs 17.52-lakh cashew processing unit set up to economically empower Odisha’s vulnerable Bonda tribal community has ended up as a sick unit, remaining defunct since 2021-22 with no government plan to revive it, the Odisha Assembly was informed Friday.
In a written reply, SC and ST Development Minister Nityananda Gond stated that the unit, established at Mudulipa da in Khairput block of Malkangiri district in 2017 under the Special Central Assistance (SCA) scheme, was handed over to the Bonda Development Agency (BDA) for operation and management. It became defunct as its manually operated and obsolete machinery could not compete with automatic cashew processing units in the market. Manual processing also substantially increased production costs, making the unit commercially unviable and resulting in losses, the minister said. The government said such an industrial operation requires substantial working capital and that running a small-scale unit through a government agency was neither practical nor financially viable.
In view of the operational constraints and prevailing market conditions, no proposal is currently under consideration to restart the unit through a government agency, Gond said. The Bondas are a PVTG community inhabiting the hilly and forested areas of Khairput block. They mainly live in Mudulipada, Andrahall, Kadamguda, Podaghat, Rasabe da and Badadural villages. According to the 2011 Census, the community comprised 1,436 families with a population of around 12,000. The cashew unit was conceived as an economic empowerment initiative for the tribal community. However, an official said the project failed to achieve its intended objective due to inadequate planning and lack of commercial viability.
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