Malanpur food park to have edible oil unit

The Malanpur-Ghirongi food park will attract more investment in days to come.

A Gwalior-based entrepreneur, Bhagwan Das Pawaiya, will set up an edible oil refinery unit in the proposed food park soon. The firm, Bhadawar Refinery & Chemicals Pvt Ltd, will take shape next year with an investment of Rs 3 crore.

"We have issued a letter of intent in April this year to the firm and have allotted a land area of 15 hectares to them for the purpose," a senior official from Gwalior said on phone.

He added that "a few more firms have shown interest in the industrial area in the food and agri processing sectors".

The firm will create 100 direct jobs approximately and at least 500 indirect jobs, said the official. However, the capacity and further details are yet to be submitted by the firm.

Food parks proposed in the state have failed to pick up in the absence of proper marketing facilities and infrastructure during the past few years. However, the Gwalior region offers good potential for agro-processing and food processing units.

The Malanpur food park is being developed under a central government scheme with an investment of Rs 8 crore.

Despite a package of sops and concessions, including state capital subsidies up to Rs 5 lakh, central capital subsidy up to Rs 50 lakh and entry tax exemption up to five years, ISO-9000 certification cost reimbursement up to Rs 75,000, project report cost reimbursement up to Rs 3 lakh and interest subsidy up to Rs 40 lakh, the centrally sponsored Food Park scheme got a lukewarm response from industry.

Six food parks are proposed in the state in Jaggakhedi (Mandsaur), Nimrani (Khargone) Piparia-Babai (Hoshangabad), Borgaon (Chhindwara), Maneri (Mandla), Malanpur-Ghirongi (Bhind).

Except for the Borgaon and Malanpur-Ghirongi areas, other food parks have attracted almost no investment. For example, the Pipariya Babai food park has hardly attracted any investment.

Interestingly, Madhya Pradesh is known as the country's soya bowl and is the third-largest wheat producer of the country with almost 6.2 million tonnes and 600,000 tonnes of production, respectively.