The Indian Coffee Board has unveiled five-point programme to save the Indian coffee Industry. Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has announced the programme in a press conference in presence of Coffee Board Chairman GV Krishna Rau.

In a bid to expand the local market, the board has set a target to double the domestic consumption by 2016 to 1,60,000 tonnes from the current 80,000 tonnes.

Board will come out with new marketing strategies to region lost export markets in Russia, Italy, Spain and Yugoslavia, where Vietnam has acquired major chunk of coffee business in recent years.

Coffee Board will also join hands with National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB) to promote medicinal plants as intercrop in the organically grown coffee plantation for extra income.

It has also been decided that centre and state will share 50% of the cost spent for social infrastructures like road and water in coffee growing areas, which would reduce the expense of the growers and enable them to gain Rs 10 over a kg.

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