Government is likely to allocate at least four food parks in the coming days, entailing an investment of Rs 500 crore, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said today.
In the last 19 months, five new Mega Food Parks have been operationalised while during the UPA term only two parks were operationalised, she said.
"So, in coming days we are going to at least allocate four more mega food parks which could entail a minimum investment of Rs 500 crore," Badal told PTI.
In March last year, the government had allocated 17 mega food parks by allocating 10 such parks to private companies including Adani Group and Ruchi Soya and the remaining seven projects to state government PSUs.
According to sources, out of the 17 parks which were allocated last year, two parties had withdrawn while the other two were not materialised due to some other reasons.
Under the scheme (2008-09) of mega food parks, the Food Processing Ministry had sanctioned 42 projects throughout the country. Of these, 25 parks have already been allocated.
The Mega Food Park Scheme, based on cluster approach, is modeled on hub and spoke architecture.
It aims at facilitating the establishment of a strong food processing industry backed by an efficient supply chain, which includes collection centres, central processing centres (CPC) and cold chain infrastructure.
The scheme envisages one time capital grant of 50 per cent of the project cost (excluding land cost) subject to a maximum of Rs 50 crore in general areas.
Besides, it has a provision of 75 per cent of the project cost (excluding land cost) subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 crore in difficult and hilly areas, including the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir.
