As part of its promotional efforts to push further the food processing sector across the country, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries is conducting regional meetings at Chandigarh, Kolkata and Bangalore to promote food parks in the north, east and southern regions, a senior official from the department said at an Assocham event held in Chandigarh.
“We’d also be organising an event on food processing in Mumbai early next year to provide the potential investors information about the advantages of the scheme and what’s happening in the sector across India,” Rakesh Kacker, secretary at the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India, said at a summit on ‘Mega Food Park: Investment Destination’ jointly organised by the ministry and industry body the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industries of India (Assocham).
To ensure closer co-ordination between the Centre and state governments, Kacker said, “As part of the mega food park scheme, we would be seeking private-sector investments through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) and its director would be a nominee of the Government of India.We have advised the state governments to provide the director for the SPVs rather than us sending someone from Delhi as local conditions and issues can be understood and taken into consideration,” said Kacker.
“An amount of Rs 250 crore is the amount as part of the budgetary provisions for the current financial year, out of which Rs 180 crore has already been released and the rest would be released depending on the utilisation.”
The secretary further said in Haryana, in-principal approval has been given to food parks in Una, Sirsa and Panipat and, in Punjab, it is only in Fazlika so far.
Talking about the role of the private sector in the food parks scheme, Kacker said that private sector would be providing with basic infrastructure facilities like water, drains, electricity, roads and that would enable them for a plot in the food park and the role of the state government would be of providing basic clearances.
