Create Rs 7,500 cr fund to upgrade non-veg processing: Assocham

The government should create a Rs 7,500 crore fund to modernise the meat, fish and poultry processing sector so that production of processed food items can increase, industry body Assocham said.

Poor infrastructural facilities such as erratic power supply, lack of cold chain and storage facilities are some of the problems faced in the transportation and marketing of processed products, the chamber said.

It has demanded "the creation of Rs 7,500 crore corpus fund to infuse technologies and skills so that processing of meat and fish and poultry production can be increased to over 25 per cent in the next two years".

The chamber estimates that India is processing only 2-4 per cent of its meat, poultry and fish even though the domestic annual output has exceeded 1 lakh million tonnes.

The processing of these food items is mainly concentrated in the unorganized sector, it said.

It further said that due to the "cumbersome licensing processes and stringent rules and regulations", processing units export only 50 per cent of the country's meat output.

The chamber has also demanded industry status for the sector to further develop the processing segment.

"The government regulates it through various state agencies including MPEDA. This needs to be deregulated so that India’s food processing goes up to higher levels," it said.

There are 40,000 food processing units in India of which 10,000 are engaged in meat, poultry and fish processing.