NEW DELHI / AGARTALA
In a major bid to transform the Northeast into a hub for premium agricultural products, the Union Government and the Tripura state administration have officially launched ‘Mission Queen Pineapple, Tripura’. The highly ambitious, convergence-led project carries a total budgetary outlay of ₹236 crore and maps out a three-year implementation roadmap spanning from FY 2026 to FY 2028.
The mission was jointly unveiled in New Delhi by Union Minister for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Jyotiraditya Scindia, Tripura Chief Minister Dr. Manik Saha, and State Agriculture Minister Ratan Lal Nath.
Bridging the Price Gap: Farm to Global Markets Tripura’s unique hilly agro-climatic terrain makes it a premier producer of the famed, GI-tagged Queen Pineapple, cultivated predominantly by tribal growers. Known for its brilliant golden-yellow color, intense aroma, low-fiber texture, and high sweetness index (13 to 17.2 degrees Brix), the fruit stands as a luxury cultivar.
However, severe structural gaps and a lack of cold-chain logistics mean local smallholders currently receive baseline farm-gate prices of just ₹6 to ₹10 per kg, whereas export-grade Queen Pineapples command ₹80 to ₹150 per kg internationally.
To aggressively resolve this, Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia announced a state-of-the-art “Hub & Spoke” post-harvest model. A centralized major handling hub will be built near Agartala Airport, supported by 8 collection centers (“spokes”) across key growing clusters equipped with cold storage, IoT-enabled farm monitoring, and QR-based digital traceability systems. The mission will also revive the defunct Nalkata Pineapple Processing Unit via a Viability Gap Funding (VGF) model.
Turning Waste Into Wealth: A ₹1,483 Crore Opportunity Beyond processing the fruit for markets like Dubai, Germany, and Russia, the mission features a massive bio-economy strategy. State Agriculture Minister Ratan Lal Nath revealed that pineapple leaves, currently discarded as waste by farmers, hold an intrinsic commercial value of nearly ₹1,483 crore. The mission will actively extract Bromelain (a high-value enzyme used in pharmaceuticals) and set up Pineapple Leaf Fiber (PALF) processing units, creating circular economy jobs for women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and rural entrepreneurs.
Multi-Ministerial Funding Breakdown: The comprehensive ₹236 crore funding pool is distributed through central-state convergence:
- Ministry of DoNER: ₹145 crore
- Ministry of Agriculture: ₹30 crore
- Ministry of Food Processing Industries: ₹25 crore
- Government of Tripura: ₹20 crore
- APEDA & Others (MSME, Commerce, ICAR): ₹16 crore
