When Siddu Pujari, an agricultural scientist, went to inspect 44 lemon pickle units in his district, Vijayapura, he came back dejected. As many as 30 were sick. He had himself got 41 units sanctioned under the PMFE (Prime Minister Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises) scheme after he’d been appointed its district resource person. At the time, not even one unit in Vijayapura, in north Karnataka, was under the scheme.
“I had got an award for this achievement,” says Pujari. The units were hamstrung because they weren’t branded and therefore found it tough to sell their pickles, he realized. It’s not as if they lacked the skills to make good pickles.