Pb to set up multi-product mega food park in Ludhiana

Five primary processing or collection centres and pack houses would be set up in the state as part of the proposed Rs 140 crore multi-product mega food park in Ludhiana, officials today said.
The park would be set up by Punjab Agro Industries on 100 acres of land at Ladhowal.
Stating this here today, an official spokesperson said that Punjab has been growing rapidly in the area of food processing, which will definitely witness transformation in the current beleaguered agriculture sector in the state.
He said five collection centres would be setup at village Muskabad (Samrala), Saholi (Nabha), Kangmai (Hoshiarpur), Lalgarh (Samana) and Babri (Gurdaspur). Besides, the state is going to identify five more such centres to develop world-class fruits and vegetables clusters.

He said fetching big investments in food processing industries was one of the top priorities and the state had launched its agro-industrial and food processing policy to provide incentives to the entrepreneurs.
"Punjab has tremendous potential and the state was launching special drives to make aware the farmers in this regard", he added.

About the proposed mega food park, he said, that 30-40 food processing units processing frozen fruits and vegetables, frozen French fries, milk, maize, bakery products, wheat pasta, tomato, chilies, snack foods, eggs, malt, honey, haldi etc would be set up there.
He said 60 acres of land would be developed for food processing units and remaining 40 acres for development of common facilities.

The spokesman said Punjab government was paying particular heed to propel the all-round growth of food processing and for this purpose the State Food Processing Development Council has been constituted to facilitate the investors, farmers and industrialists.
He asserted the major thrust on crop diversification would bring more area under cultivation of maize, cotton, pulses, Basmati, sugarcane, fodder, fruits, vegetables and agro-forestry.