Punjab’s ‘FATEH’ Gur to foray into international market

Now Punjab's 'Desi Gur' (Jaggery) and 'Shakkar'( Sugar ) will make a foray into the international market under brand name 'FATEH'.

In a unique initiative by Cooperation Department on eve of 'Lohri', on January 13, Cooperation Minister, Punjab, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has launched 3 varieties of 'Gur' & 'Shakkar'. While launching the products, the minister said that the manufacturing of both products has been started under the brand name 'FATEH' by Cooperative Sugar Mill Buddhewal and the standard of products conforms fully with food safety norms.

The minister further divulged that from next year onwards, the high quality 'Gur' and 'Shakkar' would also be exported to the US, Canada, and the Gulf countries.

In his address on the occasion, Minister S. Randhawa said, " Buddhewal Mill has started the production of 'Desi Gur', 'Haldi Gur' and 'Masala Gur'. The production of value-added products of different types such as Brown Sugar, Refined Sugar, 'Gur' and 'Shakkar' is also in the pipeline of being started in order to increase the income of the cooperative sugar mills."

The official sources revealed that the process has been set in motion to transform the cooperative sugar mills into the sugar complexes under which a plan has been chalked out to establish Co-Generation, Ethanol and BIO-CNG projects in the cooperative mills of Gurdaspur, Batala, and Ajnala. Apart from this, a Sugarcane Research Institute would also come up at Kalanaur for providing training and the high-quality seed of sugarcane to the sugarcane farmers to augment their income and increase the yield per hectare.

In Punjab, thousands of crude road-side jaggery manufacturing units start production of Gur (Jaggery) in every winter season, where the quality of the produce is not up to the mark and lacks hygiene. However, under Tandrust Punjab Mission, jaggery processing tips are being imparted to the stakeholders. In a release on December 9, 2019, K S Pannu, Director Tandrust Punjab Mission had claimed that nearly 200 people have been trained during the current season with series of training programs underway for the enthusiast stakeholders and a similar exercise was conducted during the last year as well wherein about 600 people were imparted training on 'Sugarcane Juice Processing to Safe Jaggery' by Punjab Agricultural University (PAU).

He said that it has been observed that the local jaggery manufacturers generally place the gur for sale on the open make-shift arrangements on road-side which in turn leads to exposure of produce to flies, dust, dirt, and pollution, subsequently lowering the quality of jaggery.