The Bengal government has launched Mission Tal-Khejur to expand palmyra and date palm cultivation across the state and build a government-backed system for collecting, processing and marketing jaggery and other products made from the trees, state horticulture and food processing industries minister Kalyan Chakraborty said on Friday.
The mission will cover south Bengal as well as the north Bengal plains, where the government plans to promote new plantations and food-processing units. Farmers will receive date palm and palmyra saplings free of cost, along with training in cultivation, according to the minister’s remarks during a visit to the government farm at Mohitnagar in Jalpaiguri.
The programme is intended to support a wider product chain rather than only expand tree planting. The government plans to encourage units producing jaggery, beverages and other food products from palmyra and date palms. It also plans to support the marketing of raw dates and jaggery, linking cultivation with processing and retail supply.
Chakraborty said the two varieties were already widely grown in south Bengal, but consumers in the state paid around ₹500 a kilogram for patali gur, or solid jaggery. He also said packaged date products brought in from other states and abroad had captured a significant share of Bengal’s market, despite the date palm being native to the state.
“The government wants to expand the cultivation of both these trees and develop various food products from them so that they can be sold in Bengal at affordable prices,” Chakraborty said, according to the report.
The horticulture department has been asked to increase the cultivation of date and palmyra palms in every district. The two crops, however, have different cultivation timelines. Date palms mature more quickly, while palmyra palms require a longer period before they become productive.
The proposed expansion also has location-specific requirements. Chakraborty said plantations in north Bengal would need proper drainage, an issue that will affect where the trees can be cultivated and how new farms are planned. The government has not, in the announcement reported so far, specified district-wise planting targets, the number of processing units to be supported, the funding allocation or the timeline for implementation.
The mission places cultivation, processing and marketing within a single state-backed framework. If implemented across districts, it could alter how a traditional produce chain reaches consumers, from the distribution of saplings and farmer training to the manufacture and sale of jaggery, beverages and packaged date products. The immediate challenge identified by the government is to expand production while addressing the drainage needs of north Bengal plantations.
The next steps are for the horticulture department to increase cultivation in every district and for the state to develop the proposed processing and marketing arrangements. Further details on targets, funding and implementation are yet to be announced.
