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Karnataka has set up a raisin processing and cold storage unit at Thoravi village in Tikota taluk of Vijayapura district, under the Karnataka Grape and Wine Board.
It is funded by NABARD and the state government through the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund, and has a storage and processing capacity of 10,000 tonnes.
The unit can process four tonnes of raisins an hour, has wet and dry lines, colour sorting and automated packing, and runs partly on 250 kW of solar power, to be raised to 500 kW.
It becomes fully functional from November 2026 for growers in Vijayapura, Bagalkot and Belagavi, sparing them the haul to Sangli or Pune in Maharashtra for processing and storage.
Apex development bank for agriculture and rural credit; administers the RIDF from which the unit is financed
State board under which the processing and cold storage unit has been established; set up in 2007 along with the Karnataka Grape Processing and Wine Policy
Finance rural infrastructure projects, including agriculture and allied works, taken up by state governments
Key: Announced in 1995-96 and operated by NABARD, with an initial corpus of Rs 2,000 crore. Its resources come from the shortfall in commercial banks' stipulated priority sector lending to agriculture.
Promote grape processing, raisin making and wine production in the state
Key: The policy under which the Karnataka Grape and Wine Board was constituted in 2007
Vijayapura, Bagalkot and Belagavi lie in northern Karnataka, in the Krishna basin, and together carry 42,000 of the state's 47,177 hectares under grapes. Thoravi, where the unit stands, is in Tikota taluk of Vijayapura. Until now growers here sent produce north into Maharashtra - to Sangli, India's largest raisin-producing district, or to Pune - for processing and cold storage.
General Awareness > NABARD, RIDF and priority sector lending
GS Paper III > Food processing and related industries; storage and marketing of agricultural produce
A NABARD-operated fund announced in 1995-96, financed from banks' priority sector lending shortfall, that lends to states for rural infrastructure
RBI-mandated lending targets for banks to sectors such as agriculture and small enterprise; the shortfall in the agriculture target is what funds the RIDF
An automated post-harvest step in which optical sensors grade produce by colour, used here to grade raisins before packing