Cost Economics of Tractor Drawn On-farm Mobile Turmeric Steam Boiler

Abstract

Turmeric is an important commercial spice crop grown in India since ancient times and named as “Indiansaffron”. In India during 2019-20, about 2.54 lakh ha (6 lakh acre) area and in the State of Telangana about55,443 ha (1.37 lakh acre) was covered under turmeric. The post harvesting operations of turmeric rhizomesare boiling, drying, polishing and pulverization. Among all these operations boiling is more difficult andlabour oriented. The quality of turmeric is depending upon time and method of boiling. The separatedrhizomes must be boiling within two to five days otherwise it will effect on the quality. In the traditionalmethod of boiling, the rhizomes are not cooked uniformly and injuries may be occurred by rubbing andbruising of rhizomes while taking out from the vessel. Due to lack of labour availability, the farm operationscould not be carried out in time and especially for turmeric during harvesting and boiling season. Toaddress all these problems, popular tractor drawn turmeric steam boiler was identified to reduce the cost ofoperation and labour for the benefit of the farmers.The cost economics of the machine and payback periodof turmeric steam boiler was calculated. During the operation, the fuel cost and total operating cost of themachine was estimated as 1575Rs. h-1 and 1898.28 Rs. h-1 respectively. The break-even point of turmericsteam boiler was estimated as 78.17 hour per year with the annual usage of machine was taken as 480 hourper year. From results, the annual utility and payback period were obtained as 720 tonnes per year and 1year respectively.