Imphal, December 10 2008: SOME BIG buyers who visited the state's much hyped Orange Festival in Tamenglong returned home without fulfilling their expectations.

Orange buyers usually visited Tamenglong since the beginning of the first Orange festival eight years ago with the hope of purchasing adequate oranges in bulk for their processing units in Imphal.

However this year, some of them returned empty hand.

A proprietor of a popular fruit processing centre in Imphal went to the festival to buy around 8 tons of Oranges but he returned home with only about 3 tons.

"I visited the festival with the hope of getting enough oranges at reasonable rate, but things have change here" L Sharathandra, proprietor of Ratna Fruit India told this reporter in a brief in interaction in Tamenglong, the orange orchard of the state.

There are eight popular fruit processing centres in Imphal.

Sharatchandra whose unit requires not less than 10 metric tons of orange in a season to make orange squash, used to buy the fruit at the rate of Rs 12 per kilogram during last year's festival.

But the rate has been risen to Rs 16 per kilogram this year.

"Besides the rate,we don't find enough oranges in the exhibition stalls unlike the past" he felt.

His remark makes sense as most of exhibition stalls, except a couple of them, wore deserted look during festival.

However Magfruit team of state's horticulture department managed to purchase over 8 tons of oranges for making their bottled squash.

Holding of first ever Orange growers' meet with active participation of 224 growers at Phoklong village under Tousem sub-divisional officer's area on December 4 last, reservation of oranges in the orchards due to booking by small time traders and lack of proper road and communication were the main factors of unavailability of oranges in bulk during this year's festival at Tamenglong.

Besides most of the growers in Nungba, Khoupum, Tamei and Tousem areas in Tamenglong district, used to sell their fruits to Bishnupur, Kangpokpi, Nagaland and Jiribam side due to easy transportation as per the geographical locations and profits as well.

Hafizuddin Khan, district horticulture officer posted in Tamenglong however argues, "there's no shortage of orange production in the district, many cultivators are yet to pluck their fruits from the orchards" .

"We spent Rs 1 lakh on cash awards to promote orange growers this time, besides giving the participants Rs 2000 each" the officer added.

Ringsinglung of Wairangba village, P R Abon of Dailong, R Kamlung Panmei of L Pabram bagged this year's best orange growers cash awards of Rs 50,000, Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 respectively.

The officer however agrees that there are certain factors in connection with the least participation of the growers in this year's festival.

A government employee posted in Tamenglong on the other hand suggested, "time has come for our authority to change their strategy to organize such a festival of fruits in future".

Tamenglong contributes over 50 per cent of state's annual total orange production of nearly 10,000 to 11,000 metric tons.

Around 3,838 hectares of land are under orange cultivation in Manipur.

"Expansion of orange cultivation really helps in decreasing jhumming cultivation in our district" Kadanlung Panmei o Horticulture development society, Tamenglong said.

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