You don’t need a Silver Fork to eat Good Food: 17 Food Parks

News

• The Centre allocated the development of 17 mega food parks across the country to state governments and private firms envisaging an investment of over Rs 6,000 crore.
• The project cost to set up these 17 mega food parks would be Rs 2,030 crore, of which the central grant would be Rs 850 crore.
• An estimated investment of another Rs 4,000 crore would be from food processing units to be set up in these parks.
• Five state governments, Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, have been allocated one food park each, while Kerala government has been allocated 2 food parks.
• The Mega Food Park Scheme, based on cluster approach, is modelled 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 centre (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, and 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 J&K

Benefit

• A mega food park provides various facilities to food processors, farmers, retailers and exporters, helping achieve faster growth of food processing industries.
• In these mega food parks, 80,000 people are expected to get employment while 5 lakh farmers would also be benefitted.