Vegetable parks to come up in cities: Pawar

Kanpur: Vegetable parks will be set up in all Indian cities with a minimum population of one million to ensure availability of quality produce at reasonable rates, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar announced on Saturday.

"We propose to shortly start the process of acquiring land for the purpose and would therefore urge all state governments to extend their cooperation," he said inaugurating a seminar at the Indian Institute of Pulses Research here.

"This would go a long way in ensuring not only easy availability of high quality vegetables to the people but also at reasonable prices," he noted, adding that "since we aim to completely eliminate middlemen from the process, we are confident of keeping the prices under check".

Claiming that the Union government had succeeded in bringing down onion prices from an unprecedented Rs 70 per kg to Rs 6 per kg, he was quick to blame the Uttar Pradesh government for failing to achieve that level.

"The fact that onion prices were still high in Uttar Pradesh reflects lack of will on the part of the Mayawati government," remarked Pawar.