Reliance Industries Ltd will open its first exclusive retail showroom in Jalandhar this month, followed by more in Punjab in the next couple of months.
"To mark our presence in the northern region, we have identified Jalandhar as a suitable city and our first store will be opened in this month followed by another six distribution centres in Punjab,from where,all the stocks would be supplied to the stores to be opened in Ludhiana, Amritsar, Patiala and Chandgarh by May end or early June this year", one of the senior officials of the RIL said.
The distribution centre in Jalandhar, from where we are supplying to Delhi and the NCR, is already operational, while construction is in process for distributions centres in Amritsar, Ludhiana and Chandigarh, he said, adding in Haryana also the procurement had started and the company was catering, from Haryana, to about 30 per cent of the demand of Delhi and the NCR .
RIL has plans to set up 12 collection centres in various cities including Amritsar, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana Sangrur, Patiala and Fatehgarh Sahib to facilitate procurement of the agri produce, the officials said adding the collect centres would have at least three agri graduates handling the operations.
"We are targeting about 5,000 farmers across Punjab under our Farm-to-Frok project, which apart from procuring the products from the farmers, also provides agri-extension services like guiding the farmers about crops, fertilisers and chemicals," he said adding that at a later stage, the company might start extending financial services to farmers.
The company would procure fruits from different states, like kinnows from Punjab, litchi from Bihar, mango from Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and Bihar, apple from Himachal and potatoes from Bathinda at competitive prices for its further supply to all over the country.
To ensure the desired yields from the farmers, contact farming programme has been chalked out so that on one hand farmers could get maximum for his produce and on the other the company could get the desired quality of produce, he added.
About the demand in Punjab market, he said that it was likely to grow from the present 150 tonnes by year end and it has been planned to open about 100 stores in the state and the national demand would add to this further.
