Nandan Biomatrix, a Hyderabad-based medicinal plants biotechnology company, is setting up medicinal plant processing and extraction units, as part of the horticulture processing park that is being developed at Zaheerabad, 100 km from Hyderabad.

The construction work at the site is expected to start by March 2005 and the park will be operational within 3-4 years from then. The horticulture processing park will house 15 medicinal plant processing and extraction units of the 20 units planned, V Bhaskar Rao, managing director of Nandan Biomatrix told Pharmabiz.

The horticulture park will have exclusive strategic business units for cultivation, processing, formulation and distribution. The company has acquired 200 acres at Zaheerabad for developing the horticulture-processing park. It further plans to acquire another 200 acres of land at the site to meet its expansion needs. Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (APIDCO) is studying the feasibility report of the company, on its expansion plans.

The park will have R &D facilities, utilities zone, packaging centre, training centre for farmers, a cell to provide export related information and pre-harvest and post-harvest consultancy, offer sample development on customized basis, provide toll processing facilities, cold storage and will enable contract farming through a separate zone in addition to other common facilities.

The AP Government has assured to give off-season power tariff waiver, transport subsidy, fast track clearances and contract farming support. A grant of Rs 4.26-crore has been approved for infrastructure development by the State Government towards the horticulture-processing park, Rao informed.

The park aims at providing integrated support services, allowing tenants to gain immediate access to turnkey facilities, complete the value chain in terms of backward integration / forward linkages of horticultural produce, target exports in semi-finished and finished forms of horticultural produce by establishing export oriented units. Nandan expects to generate revenue through selling the processing units, collecting user charges, providing R & D / lab facilities, backward / forward linkages.

The major raw material constraints with medicinal plants are -reduced availability of valuable medicinal plants, mismatch in quality with global requirements. Lack of cultivation technologies, poor post-harvest handling; lack of institutional support, infrastructure and market access are major concerns in the medicinal plants cultivation, processing and marketing, he opined.

Nandan is currently in talks with Baidyanath and Emami for alliance. Nandan is also to set up its own processing units in the horticulture park primarily for Aloe Vera, Safed Musli and Jatropha.