The Orissa government has allotted 110 acres of land to 55 industrial units for the proposed food processing park project being developed at Malipada in Khurda district.
“The food processing park would be developed on 162 acres of land. The state government has already allotted 110 acres to 55 units. It will invest Rs 9.9 crore on infrastructure development for this food park and out of this Rs 1.91 crore has already been deposited with the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa (Idco)”, said state industries minister Raghunath Mohanty.
Besides the food processing park, the state also planned to develop a mega food park at Khurda and the proposal is under the consideration of the Government of India, the minister stated.
The mega food park project, which is to be developed on around 200 acres of land, has the potential to attract investments to the tune of Rs 2000 crore. The state government was mulling to form a special purpose vehicle (SPV) with Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), one of India's leading infrastructure development companies, for this purpose.
The government had roped in IL&FS as a consultant to help boost investments in the food processing sector. Tenders for this project were likely to be invited by August this year.
Besides offering its expertise to help boost investments in the food processing sector, IL&FS will also offer its inputs to the state government in finalizing the food processing policy which would be notified soon, he added.
It may be noted that IL&FS had carried a study on raw material availability for the food processing sector in different locations of the state. It had identified paddy, mango, tomato, coconut, cashew, ginger and brinjal as the products with a huge potential for processing but had pointed out that the major bottleneck to the growth of the sector was the inadequate cold storage facilities in the state.
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To give the much desired fillip to the food processing sector, IL&FS had suggested the Orissa government to offer a package of incentives to attract big players in the sector like ITC, Britannia Industries and Parle Agro Ltd.
IL&FS has suggested the state government to offer a host of incentives like capital investment subsidy of at least 30 per cent, make provisions for seasonal electricity tariff for the food processing units, offer these units exemption from Value Added Tax (VAT) and provide interest subvention of five per cent. While Bihar offers a capital investment subsidy of up to 40 per cent for maize processing, there is no such scheme in Orissa.