This year's provision is a Rs 30 lakh rise over the Rs 70 lakh provided for the purpose during the last fiscal. The scheme provides for an assistance up to 33 per cent of the actual expenses incurred for modernisation of processing facilities with an upper limit of Rs 10 lakh per unit.

Reportedly, last year's provision of Rs 70 lakh was not sufficient to meet the requirements of the cashew processing industry. Even this year's provision may not be enough to meet the number of applicants' demands as there are over 800 cashew kernel processing units in the country.

More financial assistance to cashew processors comes at a time when they are getting more aggressive about making their presence felt in the market.

Along with the urgent needto modernise, cashew companies are also realising that they need to play a more visible role in the market so that some of their more pressing demands are looked into by the state and the central governments.

The cashew industry in Kerala is still at loggerheads with the state government over the issue of monopoly procurement of raw cashew. Some companies based in Kerala are shifting their operations to neighbouring Tamil Nadu for a hassle-free industrial environment.

Meanwhile, cashew kernel exports from the country has registered an all-time record of Rs 1,610 crore in 1998-99. This is an increase of 15 per cent over the earnings of Rs 1,396 during the last year. The volume of export, however, has dipped two per cent compared to the previous year. In 1997-98, a total of 76,593 tonnes of cashew kernel was exported against last fiscal's 75,026 tonnes. The decline in quantity was due to drastic decrease in production of raw nuts in the country.

This is yet again an indication of the fact that the cashewkernel processing industry in the country is not yet streamlined to meet the emergencies arising out of the market conditions. The highly labour-oriented industry has no big promoters and has for long been lobbying for the plantation crop status.

Cashew exporters still hold firm to their belief that promotion of cashew cultivation can lead to greater employment generation, utilisation of waste land and higher foreign exchange earnings. Their plea has been blostered by the recent trends in the price of natural rubber. More cultivation will mean also import substitution leading greater margins of profit for the processors in India.

Experts in the industry say that in the years to come raw cashew will not be easily available in the countries from which we are importing them now. The advantage India had was in processing. The processing units in India put together have a capacity of over 8,00,000 mt of raw nuts per annum. But domestic production is less than 4,00,000 mt per annum. During 1998-99, raw cashewimports to India was estimated at 1,81,009 mt resulting in foreign exchange outflow of Rs 689.24 crore ($162 million).