Narwan, a small village in the din and bustle life of coal mining areas of East Jaintia Hills District, is very famous for traditional Khasi Mandarin orange for its unique aroma, colour and sweet taste. The fruit owners practice the traditional custom of selling fruits through the hands of traders, who themselves decide the price of the oranges. These traders are mostly from Assam and other states. It is informed by the villagers that the owners are not happy with this practice, but they don’t have any other way of selling the oranges. The traders harvest the orchards which sometimes results in serious damage to the fruit trees. The owners are not aware of the volume of the harvest from the orchards because they are completely dependent on the hands of the traders.
With the implementation of the Integrated Basin Development and Livelihood Programme (IBDPL) in the District, promotion of Narwan orchards is then taken as one of the main activities under the programme. As mentioned above, Narwan village produces good quality of oranges but proper branding and marketing of the products are very important for higher profit.
Shri. Harlington Shadap, headman of Narwan village has taken active participation by mobilizing the people of Narwan and making them aware about the importance of Narwan Orange. With the leadership of the Integrated Basin and Livelihood Promotion Programme, the idea of selling the produce to the market directly, has lead to the elimination of the middle men of buying the oranges from the orchard randomly. Training of the farmers for processing, packaging and labeling of the product has been an important intervention. With his involvement a group of the farmers from Narwan village have been sent to National Research Centre for Citrus, Nagpur for training regarding proper maintenance, packaging, marketing etc. This has added more value to the oranges by proper packaging, branding and marketing it to Shillong at a fixed rate. They have also formed the Integrated Village Cooperative Society (IVCS) which will play a vital role not only for improving the market linkage for the oranges but will also look into the maintenance of the orchards and help in organizing the entire system of production, processing and marketing of the various products from the village. Narwan Orange was launched by his Excellency Governor of Meghalaya on the 21st January, 2013.