Tuesday, 7 July 2015

Mega Food park

Salient Features of Mega Food Parks
The Mega Food ParksScheme aims to provide a mechanism to bring together farmers, processors and retailers and link agriculture production to the market so as to ensure maximization of value addition, minimization of wastages and improving farmers’ income. The primary objective of the Scheme is to provide modern infrastructure facilities for the food processing along the value chain from the farm to the market with a cluster based approach based on a hub and spokes model.It includes creation of infrastructure for primary processing and storage near the farm in the form of Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) and Collection Centres (CCs) and common facilities and enabling infrastructure like roads, electricity, water, ETP facilities etc. at Central Processing Centre (CPC). These PPCs and CCs act as aggregation and storage points to feed raw material to the food processing units located in the CPC.

Food Processing being capital incentive activity, common facilities are created at CPC to be used by the processing units on hire basis. This helps in reducing the cost of individual units significantly and makes them more viable. The minimum land required for a Central Processing Centre in Mega Food Park is 50 acre and implementation period is 30 months. The scheme is demand-driven and would facilitate food processing units to meet environmental, safety and social standards. A cluster of 30-35 units is expected to come up in one Mega Food Park with an investment of about Rs. 250 Crore. It is likely to benefit about 6000 farmers/ producers directly and 25000-30000 farmers indirectly.

The financial assistance under the scheme is provided in the form of grant-in-aid @ 50% of eligible project cost in general areas and @ 75% of eligible project cost in NE Region and difficult areas (Hilly States and ITDP areas) subject to maximum of Rs. 50 crore per project.

Functioning of Mega Food Parks is closely monitored by the Ministry through a well-established mechanism as per the scheme guidelines. This includes detailed scrutiny of the periodical progress reports of the project by the Programme Management Agency (PMA) and the Ministry, verification of the bills by the Project Management Consultant (PMC) before release of the funds from the bank account maintained for the purpose, site visits of the projects by the PMA and Ministry officers, periodic review meetings of the progress of the projects at the level of the senior officers and Minister in the Ministry etc.Ministry monitors each project very closely and regularly.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha here today. 
Mega Food Parks
The Ministry has announced selection of 17 new Mega Food Parks against the vacancies caused due to withdrawal or cancellation of the projects selected earlier. Out of these 17 (Seventeen) new Mega Food Parks, 7 (Seven) projects have been approved for State Government Agencies from 6 (Six) States and 10 (Ten) projects have been approved for private promoters. The financial assistance for setting up Mega Food Parks is provided @ 50% of eligible project cost in general areas and @ 75% of eligible project cost in NE Region and difficult areas (Hilly States and ITDP areas) subject to maximum of Rs. 50 crore per project. The total estimated proposed project cost of these 17 projects is Rs. 2333 crore out of which the Government grant is likely to be around Rs. 850 crore and promoters’ contribution as equity and loan is around Rs. 1483 crore.

Mega Food Parks aim at creating modern infrastructure for development of food processing sector which helps in reduction in wastage of perishables, value addition to the agricultural produce, providing better price to farmers and creation of employment opportunities especially in rural areas. Mega Food Parks function on a cluster based approach based on a hub and spokes model. Infrastructure is created for primary processing and storage near the farm in the form of Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) and Collection Centres (CCs) located in production areas. These PPCs and CCs act as aggregation and storage points to feed raw material to the processing units located in the Central Processing Centre (CPC). Common facilities and enabling infrastructure like modern warehousing, cold storage, IQF, sorting, grading, packaging, pulping, ripening chambers and tetra packaging units, roads, electricity, water, ETP facilities etc. are created at CPC for food processing units to be set up in the Park.

The Government has sanctioned setting up of 42 (Forty Two) Mega Food Parks for creation of modern infrastructure for food processing industries in the country. Out of these, 21 (Twenty One) Parks have been accorded Final Approval by the Ministry and are at various stages of implementation. Four Mega Food Parks at Haridwar (Uttarkhand), Chittoor (Andhra Pradesh), Fazilka (Punjab) and Tumkur (Karnataka) have become operational. The other projects, which have been accorded In-principle approval, are in the process of meeting the conditions of final approval as per the scheme guidelines.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha here today.

Investment in Mega Food Parks
The Ministry has accorded in-principle approval/final approval to 40 (Forty) Mega Food Parks (MFPs) in the country so far for creation of modern infrastructure for food processing industries.  Details of these Projects including name of the company/firm/organization to which these Projects have been allocated are given below in table.
The total estimated investment in these 40 Mega Food Park would be around Rs. 14794 crore including a Government grant of around Rs. 2000 crore and promoters’ contribution of around Rs. 2794 crore as equity and loan. A cluster of 30-35 food processing units are expected to come up in each Mega Food Park with an estimated investment of about Rs. 250 crore. Implementation period of a Mega Food Park Project is 30 Months from the date of final approval for the Projects approved upto IV Phase of implementation of the scheme and 30 Months from the date of release of 1st Instalment for the Projects approved in V Phase, unless extended by the Inter-Ministerial Approval Committee (IMAC). The location of the 40 Mega Food Parks is given below.

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